2023-10-09 20:26:27
Who are the election winners? In Bavaria, the AfD and the Free Voters each gained more than 4 percentage points, while all other relevant parties lost votes. The FDP was hit hardest, ahead of the Greens and the SPD. The CSU also gave up, moderately, but for the second time under Prime Minister Markus Söder. In Hesse, however, things went up significantly for the CDU under its head of government Boris Rhein on Sunday: he was the first choice in his first election.
However, you also have to take a closer look in Wiesbaden. The Union recorded the highest increase in percentage points. Compared to the starting point five years ago, the AfD’s increase in votes at 40 percent is much larger than that of the CDU/CSU at 28 percent. The increase in free voters by almost 17 percent is also notable here. On the losing side, the Left suffered the biggest drop ahead of the FDP, the Greens and the SPD. The Liberals barely made their way into parliament.
Pithy sayings by Friedrich Merz
It is certainly true that the traffic light parties in the states felt the displeasure with federal policy. In Bavaria they lost almost 7 percentage points, in Hesse even more than 12. Rhine benefited from the fact that his challenger Nancy Faeser (SPD) was perceived as a half-hearted Hessian, and on the other hand, as Federal Minister of the Interior, she attracted a lot of criticism with her migration policy. The CSU, on the other hand, was unable to capitalize on voters’ doubts about the Berlin alliance in Bavaria.
It is noteworthy that the strongest opposition party in the Bundestag is taking little credit for the decline of the left-green dominated traffic light. The FDP’s calculation of selling itself as an internal opposition, the last bastion of reason and moderation, was even less successful.
As a result, it is not the bourgeois, not the liberal forces who win the election, but the right-wing ones. This is also because the Union has lost parts of its conservative profile on its way to the center, which even pithy sayings from Friedrich Merz cannot bring back.
A comment from Julia Löhr, Berlin Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 37 Patrick Welter Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 6 Alexander Wulfers Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 1
Nevertheless, the days of a structural left-wing majority in Germany appear to be over. In addition to the Hesse and Bavarian elections, this is also shown by the federal polls with the AfD as the strongest force behind the Union. Here it wouldn’t even be enough for a black-green alliance. In East Germany, the shift to the right is likely to intensify in 2024. However, this new majority will not be politically effective as long as the Union and FDP refuse any cooperation with the AfD.
There are good reasons for this, but the “firewall” means that other government constellations have to be sought in which the partners only fit together poorly, political decisions are therefore difficult and the left-green positions are disproportionately taken into account.
Locally rooted conservative collections such as the Free Voters could provide a way out of the dilemma. Some of them are taking the water away from the AfD and are seen as capable of satisfying the other parties and forming a coalition. In this respect, the experiment in Munich could point beyond Bavaria – and Markus Söder’s time as a federal politician would not be over yet.
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