On death and dying

摘要

The reaction of Germany's political class to the demise of their four-party system is reminiscent of Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross's "five stages of grief". First came "denial". In 2005 the Left Party won enough seats in Germany's parliament to stymie the two usual coalition options: a right-of-centre one between the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), or a left-leaning pairing of the Social Democrats (SPD) with either the FDP or the Greens.