Merkel's successor in the CDU faces its first electoral test with two regional elections

The great German election year, with six regional elections and a decisive general election to elect Chancellor Angela Merkel's successor, officially kicks off this Sunday.

Two federal states, Baden-Württemberg, to the south, and Rhineland Palatinate, to the southwest, elect their representatives after an atypical electoral campaign with hardly any face-to-face events.

The polls do not foresee surprises and give victory to the current leaders of both states, but the parties are at stake much more than two regional presidencies.

The new leader of the CDU, Armin Laschet, faces his first test before the September elections, the first without Merkel in 16 years.

The conservatives of the CDU arrive at the first electoral appointment of the year with a heavy backpack on their back.

In recent days, a scandal of alleged corruption has been uncovered that affects at least one of his deputies in the Bundestag and another in the CSU, his Bavarian sister party.

Parliamentarians' companies charged six-figure commissions for brokering the purchase of masks during the first wave of the pandemic.

Their formations pressed for them to resign quickly, but the damage had already been done and now their political rivals insist that these are not isolated cases, but rather a structural problem of the conservative formation.

The mask scandal adds pressure to Armin Laschet, who debuted as CDU president last January.

A bad result in his first elections as leader of the party would reduce his options to run as a conservative candidate in the September general elections.

In a few weeks the CDU has to agree with its Bavarian partner who they will present to the electoral race.

Although there are no official candidacies, it is presumed that Markus Söder, leader of the CSU, also aspires to fight for the Chancellery.

So far supporters rate Söder best for the job, according to polls.

Polls predict a comfortable win on Sunday for Winfried Kretschmann in Baden-Württemberg, a rich and industrial state, home to major car companies such as Porsche and Daimler, which is so far the only one of the 16 Länder in the hands of the Greens.

Kretschmann, 72, exemplifies the more pragmatic and flexible stream of environmental education.

He won his first elections in 2011 and made a pact with the SPD Social Democrats.

He won again in 2016 and allied with the CDU, with which he has governed for the last five years without giving the press big headlines about internal fights or deep-seated discrepancies between the partners.

The Greens want to position themselves as a pragmatic and governing party during the upcoming electoral round.

And a Kretschmann victory is the best cover letter.

Among his virtues is that of having known how to address the middle class concerned about the environment and distance his party from the image of radicalism it once had.

His critics, many in his own formation, disgust him that he did not implement during his tenures the reforms that the Greens consider fundamental in the matter of energy transition.

Its Education Minister, Susanne Eisenmann, 56, is the CDU's candidate for the regional presidency.

The particularities that the pandemic has imposed on this campaign could cushion the blow of the corruption scandal, points out the political scientist Frank Brettschneider.

It is estimated that many voters, perhaps close to 50%, will vote by mail.

This expert from the University of Hohenheim (Baden-Württemberg) explained a few days ago in a virtual meeting with the media that 34% of the votes had already been sent when the masks controversy broke out.

"No matter how many new scandals appear, that vote cannot be undone," he joked.

"In the CDU there was already concern about the poor results predicted by the polls but this has added unease," he added.

The latest poll by public television ZDF gives a 34% vote to the Greens;

24% to the CDU;

11% both to the extreme right of Alternative for Germany and the liberals of the FDP and 10% to the Social Democrats.

When asked who would they prefer to have as president of Baden-Württemberg, 70% of those surveyed answered that it was Kretschmann.

Only 13% named Eisenmann.

“The Greens are going to be the strongest party again and they will surely widen their distance with the CDU.

And the Greens could consider another coalition with the SPD if the Social Democrats regain votes and the option is numerically viable, "says Arne Jungjohann, political analyst and contributor to the Heinrich Böll foundation, linked to the Greens.

Jungjohann assures that two weeks ago he would have bet that the regional elections would point to a future federal coalition between the conservatives and the Greens in which the environmentalists would be the minority partner that “would promote a more ambitious climate agenda, immigration policies more favorable to the refugees and a clear pro-European perspective ”.

But now that, he says, the mask scandal is eroding the confidence of conservative voters, the CDU could be left out of the Baden-Württemberg government and "the lineup could plummet further in national polls."

At the moment the polls give between 30% and 33% of votes to the Conservatives for the Bundestag, between one and three percentage points less now than before the mask scandal became known.

The next party in voting intention is the Greens, with between 17% and 20%.

The SPD is between 16% and 17%.

Analysts predict a great role for environmentalists in this electoral super-year.

And they expect the example of Baden-Württemberg to come up very often in Berlin.

Kretschmann is the proof that a leader of the Greens can combine the defense of the environment and the promotion of the automobile industry in his region.

Although there are also those who say that the experience of southern Germany cannot be extrapolated to the rest of the country precisely because Kretschmann is a rarity in his party.