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FDP leader Christian Lindner: "We are happy about the growing popularity"
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / picture alliance / dpa
The state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate started the super election year 2021.
And the political business in Berlin blown through properly: The CDU has to accept a bitter defeat in both federal states, only the AfD is losing even more.
The Greens can significantly improve their results in both elections, in Baden-Württemberg the FDP is also making gains.
The elections are also a confirmation for the person in office: Winfried Kretschmann (Bündnis 90 / Die Grüne) can continue to rule in Stuttgart, while Malu Dreyer (SPD) asserts himself in Mainz.
Kretschmann could dissolve his green-black alliance and rule with the SPD in the future, Dreyer hopes to continue her traffic light coalition with the Greens and the FDP.
FDP leader Christian Lindner also hopes - the votes for the liberals in Rhineland-Palatinate are anything but optimal.
(Here you can find the projections from both countries.)
But after the election is before the election.
The first notes from Berlin make it clear how the parties are preparing for the federal election.
At the
CDU
, responsibility is pushed aside.
Or be silent.
General Secretary Paul Ziemiak justified the poor performance of his party with the situation in the federal states: "The prime ministers are personal successes." However, he does not see a change in mood for the federal government.
Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) also believes that the incumbent bonus was the decisive factor "by far".
"It's not a nice evening for the CDU," admitted Schäuble.
"But that was predictable." Neither Chancellor Angela Merkel, nor CDU boss Armin Laschet or CSU boss Markus Söder commented on the evening.
A bit of a mask affair
However, Ziemiak admits part of the blame for the mask affair.
In the affair, several previous members of the Bundestag are suspected of corruption because they have earned hundreds of thousands of euros as a commission on business with masks or have allegedly accepted donations from the autocratic oil state Azerbaijan.
Clearer criticism comes from the sister
party CSU
.
State group leader Alexander Dobrindt attributes the poor performance of the CDU mainly to the deficits in the fight against pandemics and calls for substantive consequences.
"There is nothing to gloss over these election results," said Dobrindt of the "Augsburger Allgemeine".
"Of course, the incidents about the mask affair were an additional negative point," but the downward trend in the Union was already clearly visible before that.
"There is just too much that is not working convincingly well at the moment," said Dobrindt.
»Great start to the super election year«
The
Greens,
on the other hand, are cheering.
"It's a great start to the super election year," said party leader Robert Habeck.
"Foresight and pragmatism" are now the task of the Greens as the entire federal party from this election evening.
Co-party leader Annalena Baerbock added that the longstanding upward trend for the party had solidified again.
"For us, this is now a big task for more climate protection," says Baerbock.
In Baden-Württemberg the Greens were able to further expand their majority in the state parliament, in Rhineland-Palatinate their result doubled to a good 9 percent according to current projections.
The
SPD also
sees itself on the winning side - although it suffered slight losses in both elections.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, however, the Social Democrats are again well over 30 percent, they remain the strongest force.
SPD general secretary Lars Klingbeil said on ZDF that he was "incredibly happy" about the result of his party in Rhineland-Palatinate.
Klingbeil admitted that he was only not satisfied with the SPD result in Baden-Württemberg.
According to forecasts, there is only enough for the party for 12 percent.
SPD Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz said the results showed that governments without the CDU are possible in both countries.
That is "tailwind for the federal election".
SPD leader Norbert Walter-Borjans also sees the election results as evidence that the CDU is not needed as a government partner: "We should use this opportunity."
Confidence in the FDP
The liberals are also confident, but their result is not at all clear: In Baden-Württemberg, the
FDP
was able to gain, but in Rhineland-Palatinate there is still a risk of failing the five percent hurdle.
FDP leader Christian Lindner nevertheless says that the FDP's government responsibility was confirmed in Mainz.
"We are pleased about the growing popularity," says Lindner.
So far, the party has always been thrown out of parliaments after participating in traffic light coalitions.
The
AfD has
to report
severe losses
, it lagged well behind the results of 2016.
AfD parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel said that her party was "illegally hounded by the protection of the constitution".
In addition, there were »reprisals against our election campaigners«.
AfD boss Jörg Meuthen also attributes the relatively poor performance of his party to the conflict with the protection of the constitution.
Even if the court had stopped the protection of the constitution for the time being, "the voters are now associating the AfD with the monitoring of the constitution because of the wide coverage," said Meuthen.
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