SPD and Weil with a clear victory

by time news

Berlin, Hannover In the state elections in Lower Saxony, Prime Minister Stephan Weil’s SPD once again became the strongest party. According to the preliminary official result (11:26 p.m.), the Social Democrats, despite slight losses, were 33.4 percent ahead of the CDU, which received 28.1 percent of the vote. “We fought and we won tonight,” Weil shouted to the cheering supporters. The SPD is by far the strongest party and has the government mandate.

During the election campaign, the Social Democrats relied entirely on the incumbent prime minister’s office bonus – with success. Despite the weakness of the SPD in the federal trend, the Social Democrats won in Lower Saxony.

It is likely that there will be a majority for Weil’s desired red-green coalition. On the evening of the election, top SPD politicians spoke out in favor of such an alliance. Greens top candidate Julia Willie Hamburg also said that her party would shape Lower Saxony for the next five years.

A good six million people were called upon to elect a new state parliament in Hanover. Since 2017, the SPD and CDU have governed Lower Saxony in a grand coalition led by Prime Minister Weil. The social democrat has been prime minister since February 2013 and is aiming for a third term. In 2017, the SPD was able to book 36.9 percent.

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The CDU with its top candidate Bernd Althusmann lost votes. In 2017 she got 33.6 percent of the votes. The CDU country chief announced his retirement that evening.

The Greens increased to 14.5 percent, but had hoped for more than 20 percent in the summer. Nevertheless, the top candidates Hamburg and Christian Meyer can be happy about a historically good result. In 2017, the Greens performed significantly weaker at 8.7 percent. “We are very happy,” said Hamburg. The prospect of government participation should also contribute to this.

The FDP, on the other hand, did not make it over the five percent hurdle on Sunday. With the preliminary result, it was just under 4.7 percent. In the last elections in 2017, she got 7.5 percent of the votes. FDP party leader Christian Lindner spoke of a “sad evening”. The Liberals had suffered “a political setback”.

This makes it increasingly obvious to the FDP that the traffic light coalition in the federal government is doing more harm than good. In the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in May, the Liberals got just 5.9 percent of the votes, in Schleswig-Holstein 6.4 percent. In both countries, the FDP was kicked out of the state government.

Die Linke missed out on getting into the Lower Saxony state parliament, and according to the forecasts, the AfD can post a double-digit result (11 percent). Dissatisfaction and fears about the future are apparently driving many voters to the right-wing party.

CDU misses the federal government’s punishment

For the Berlin traffic light government, the election in Lower Saxony was an important mood test. The SPD went into election day as the favorite ahead of the CDU. Until the very end, they hoped to be able to overtake their coalition partner, the SPD. CDU leader Friedrich Merz was involved in the election campaign. The party hoped to capitalize on voter dissatisfaction with the Berlin traffic light alliance.

The Lower Saxony election campaign was less influenced by local issues and more by federal politics. The hot topic was energy policy and the drastic increase in energy prices. The CDU in particular had therefore declared the election to be a vote on the crisis policy of the traffic light coalition in the federal government.

With the result this Sunday, the SPD, but also the Greens, should feel confirmed in their course in the Ukraine and energy crisis. Lower Saxony remains in the hands of the SPD and the current and probably future 63-year-old Prime Minister Weil should be able to expand his nationwide influence with his renewed victory – possibly in an alliance with the Greens. Weil had already led such an alliance between 2013 and 2017.

>> Read here: The current reactions to the election: The blog for the election in Lower Saxony

In the final sprint to the election campaign, the FDP had also opted for a traffic light alliance in Lower Saxony. Their argument: only one vote for the Liberals could prevent a red-green coalition. The party tried to attract undecided voters from the CDU.

For the Liberals, Lower Saxony is traditionally a state where everything and nothing is possible. In the 1990s, they twice failed to get into the state parliament, and later, from 2003, they governed for ten years in a coalition with the CDU. In 2013, the FDP achieved its best result in history with 9.9 percent, but was kicked out of the state government anyway.

Top candidate Stefan Birkner (right) speaks at the FDP’s election party for the state elections

However, campaigning for a traffic light alliance in Lower Saxony was not easy because the Greens and FDP fought a tough election campaign against each other. FDP top candidate Stefan Birkner called for the nuclear power plant in Lingen, Lower Saxony, to be left on the grid for longer – contrary to what the Green Federal Minister of Economics, Robert Habeck, is planning. The Lower Saxony Greens are considered to be particularly bitter opponents of nuclear power. After all, the party fought here for decades against the Gorleben repository.

Nuclear dispute divides the federal government

It will be exciting to see how the Lower Saxony elections will influence future cooperation between the traffic light coalition in Berlin. The election campaign has also made it clear at the federal level how far apart the Greens and the FDP are in energy policy. The Liberals accuse Habeck and the Greens of being ideologically obstinate on the nuclear issue.

In the past few days, they have continued to increase the pressure on the Greens. They are demanding that the two nuclear power plants that have already been shut down should be reconnected to the grid should the energy crisis make this necessary.

The top candidates Julia Willie Hamburg (left) and Christian Meyer

According to current forecasts, a government coalition between the SPD and the Greens is mathematically possible.

(Photo: dpa)

At the meeting of the federal cabinet last Wednesday, the dispute over the extension of nuclear power reached its peak. Habeck was unable to present his law, which is intended to enable the continued operation of two southern German nuclear power plants until April 2023, because the plans did not go far enough for the liberals. The Greens, on the other hand, are now threatening to shut down all three remaining nuclear power plants at the end of the year, as originally planned.

At the end of the week, the Greens will face another important mood test for their federal political course: their federal party conference will take place in Bonn from Friday to Sunday, at which tough discussions on the topics of nuclear and coal power can be expected.

At the latest after the party congress, the federal government must then find a common line on the nuclear issue. So far there is no indication that the FDP or the Greens are moving away from their position. Many in the traffic light alliance therefore expect a word of power from Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD).

More: Election result in Lower Saxony: A lifebelt for Olaf Scholz

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