It depends. I agree that we should (always) try to find a better solution with less flaws.

If young people don't vote they don't have to expect that any of the politicians get voted which substitute their opinions. So, when the same old farts get voted every time it's the fault of the youg people who don't go voting.
But I think most of them don't go voting because they are more interested in when the next console generation is released than in politics.

Last thing I would do is use my country's political system as an example of anything good.

No its the fault of both groups, the old, voting, and voting for whomever they vote for all the wrong reasons, and the young not voting at all. Both is wrong, and even when the second one is more "morally" wrong, the first one is more effective in how much wrongness it achieves.

CDU/CSU getting almost 50% of the seats makes them and Merkel really happy there's no doubt about it.

True, probably the cause of voting demographics as most people of my age and older aren't really interested in Internet and don't even know the difference between bit and byte.

Erm, no. She aimed for over 50% and if she failed she would have a backup plan to make a coaliton with the FDP but that didn't work out either.
Now she has to find a new partner and everyone available is reluctant to work with her. Who can blame them?
Her only hope is the missing spine of the SPD, if they would grow some balls things would turn out to be very fun, but I'm dreaming... this isn't going to happen.

She doesn't need a coalition to support her , she just needs a couple of MPs. It's a solid victory for Merkel pure and simple.

I hope you are right but If you think that she can or will rule without any coalition partner your sadly mistaken.

I sincerely hope she tries that. It will be fun to watch, that would be the most stupid thing she ever done yet, I think she will rather start new elections than running a minority government. German "democracy" works like that. You have a vast majority in parliament or you die a painfully slow and awkward political death.

Germany needs someone like Silvio Berlusconi as a spokesman

That guy is fuckin hilarious

It doesn't work like this here. MPs aren't free to do whatever they want. Only half of them are voted directly. As long as you're in your party/parliamentary faction you must do what they tell you. Of course you can abandon your party and defect to another but this happens rarely. There is no clear majority for a single party and therefore the victory is not solid until the conservatives find a coalition partner which will be difficult because all the other parties in parliament oppose them. It's a bit like a stalemate currently.

Anyway we desire stability and will therefore come up with a large coalition within the next weeks, you'll see. If not there will be another round of elections, but this is unlikely.

Oh no, thank you. One Berlusconi is enough for the world. :)

Older people have other priorities than younger ones which often don't earn or not that much money. For pensioners, it's the only way to influence the security of theirs pensions. Employed people can look for a new job if they think it's going downhill at their company.
During this election, you could choose between:
- CDU/CSU: If there weren't the euro crisis, I am unsure you would have noticed them governing. In general, that's neither good or bad, but for me because I think there need to be reforms, it's bad. They are pro-security, pro-surveillance, pro big energy corporations (who has to pay for not-constructed powerlines which a private should have build? The tax payer).
- SPD: Made important reforms when they governed ~2000, but have not much to offer today except minimum wage and equal page for core and rented workers.
- FDP: Fooled theirs voters 4 ago (huge posters claiming that a nurse will have X euro more in her pocket etc.), wanted to privatize many things and let everybody pay the same amount (without wage recalibration), lowered the tax for hotels after officially receiving money from the owners of a hotel group, voted against action in Lybia (abstaining would have been okay). The party for high earners and also some office people working for the government. Some younger MPs and ministers, but their frontrunner this time was a dinosaur.
- Greens: Like the FDP a party for the better earning people, but with a conscience. Didn't talk much about their usual topics like ecology, energy, animals, civil rights, but about increasing taxes - theirs voters didn't like that. Also there are some factions in the party.
- Left: Second-strongest force in the east where they are the successors of the GDR party SED, are still unable to say that shooting people at the inner-German border was wrong, every Anti-American is welcome, are against anything which has to be done and promise everything. In the West, they are more extrem and have many disgruntled former SPD members.
- AfD: Against increased money transfers in the European Union, else mostly lacking a program.
- NPD: Nazis. Got <1% in the west and 3-4% in the East (at least where I checked).
I can't find a party which makes totally happy. Can you? But that's politics. It's not fun. Also the youth will come to terms with it. The old politicians gain more influence the more the young voters abstain.
Forcing votes would only help the extreme, and voting is not for protesting but for finding the party which matches best with one's needs and also not-self-centered goals.

The last major British Elections - we ended up aith a conservative ruled government, even though less than half of us voted for it. The fact it was a coalition govt with the Liberal Democrats had most of the otry voters raging.
End result: country more fucked up than ever.

It is not over until the fat lady (Merkel) sings.

What reforms would you like to see in Germany? Just curios.