The state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate this Sunday will mark the start of the super election year 2021 and are expected to further shake the CDU.
The hardest days of the recent past are not behind the CDU - they are, in all probability, still ahead of it.
Mask affair, vaccination errors, now the test chaos and the corona plans of the federal government and states that are opaque for more and more people in Germany - the mistakes and mishaps from Berlin are likely to have serious consequences for the elections in Germany on Sunday.
Surveys in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate predict: The CDU threatens an election disaster on Sunday
The slightest quake can still be expected from the outcome of the local elections in Hesse, but the state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate are likely to be the first tough test in the super election year 2021 for the Adenauerhaus around the new CDU party leader Armin Laschet.
Despite all the optimism of purpose,
even the strategists in the party headquarters
expect
two defeats this Sunday,
according to the
dpa
.
Although the CDU in Rhineland-Palatinate was ahead of the SPD for months, the incumbent Prime Minister Malu Dreyer was only able to catch up in the past few weeks - and then overtake.
According to the latest surveys, the SPD is at 32 to 33 percent, the CDU at 29. Compared to the 2016 result (SPD: 36.2; CDU: 31.8), both fell slightly.
But the tendency clearly speaks in favor of the Social Democrats.
Thanks to strong Greens and Liberals, Dreyer should be able to continue her traffic light alliance - without the CDU.
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The Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer (SPD), and the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann (Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen) before the meeting.
© dpa
In Baden-Württemberg, on the other hand, top candidate Susanne Eisenmann has such poor personal poll ratings that the Prime Minister of the Greens, Winfried Kretschmann, is considered the only acceptable conservative in the southwest.
And the surveys show that too.
Before Sunday, Kretschmann is around 32 to 35 percent, the CDU around 24 to 23. For comparison, here too: In 2016 the Greens got 30.3 percent, the CDU 27. The traffic light coalition is also possible in BaWü, it would be for them CDU a debacle in their former home country.
Survey debacle for the CDU before the elections in Germany: Does the Union now have to clarify the K question?
For the CDU, there is far more at stake than two lost state elections.
Since the high caused by the Corona crisis in early and mid-2020, the Union's popularity has been going down steeply.
According to the polls, the parties at the federal level are miles away from a green-red-yellow majority.
Nevertheless, the signals from the countries should not be underestimated.
In the super election year 2017, the Union was boosted by winning three state elections in Saarland, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia.
Now the CDU is threatened with a downward spiral and one question is becoming more and more urgent: Who will lead the Union as a candidate for Chancellor in the Bundestag election campaign?
A decision as to whether CDU boss Laschet or the CSU boss Markus Söder, who is much more popular in the surveys, is supposed to be made between Easter and Pentecost.
But every day without clarity and with mutual taunts is likely to damage the Union.
The reactions to the elections in the coming days should show how long they will and can afford this vacuum.