Are German Parties Responsible?

Political scientists usually advocate "responsible parties." This idea suggests that parties have a platform, program, or agenda, especially one that is different across a number of parties. The job of voters is to select the party whose platform, program, or agenda, most closely matches their own ideas about what government should or shouldn't be doing. If a party is in government and not doing what the voters think it should be doing, then the voters have the ability to remove that party from power.

How about if a party makes a promise, but is unable to fulfill that promise or blatantly violates that promise? Should the voters remove that party from its majority status?

In 2008, the Social Democratic Party in the German state of Hesse promised voters that it would not enter into a coalition with the Left Party (Die Linke), a successor party to the Party of Democratic Socialism from the old East Germany. After the election when it became clear that the SPD would have to form a coalition with the Left, there was a rebellion within the party. Hesse had to have two state-level elections in a year.

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Shouldn't voters punish a party that decides against following its own policies? Does it matter that the SPD wasn't able to take the majority without a majority or as part of a coalition?

Maybe the problem with the German political parties is the nature of the German political parties.