Election in Saxony-Anhalt: Haseloff's solo, Laschet's blank space

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CDU politician Haseloff, Laschet

Photo: Sebastian Willnow / dpa

On this election evening, the inconspicuous Reiner Haseloff, whose name is still occasionally honored after the example of a US actor and singer, despite his ten years in office, did a great service to democracy in Germany.

The 67-year-old has kept a partly right-wing extremist party in check.

Haseloff's victory is his very personal success.

The more than 35 percent have hardly anything to do with his party, the CDU.

When the AfD achieved its record result in Saxony-Anhalt five years ago, the CDU man built the first nationwide Kenya coalition with the SPD and the Greens.

Haseloff has this anti-AfD alliance despite all adversities - and there were many!

- held together, he has put in his strongly right-wing CDU parliamentary group, most recently killed his crown prince and interior minister after trying to flirt with the AfD.

He is the face of the no to any cooperation with the far right.

more on the subject

• Reiner Haseloff's election victory in Saxony-Anhalt: He did it - and how Peter Maxwill and Christopher Piltz report from Magdeburg

• News blog about the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt: CDU scores with over 60-year-olds, AfD with younger people by Marius Mestermann and Anna-Sophie Schneider

• SPD and Scholz after election in Saxony-Anhalt: perplexed, helpless, powerless by Christian Teevs

So Haseloff has fought a defensive battle for the past five years.

Without him, the firewall against the far right in Saxony-Anhalt might not have held up.

And it can be assumed that the CDU received many democratic loan votes from the Greens and the SPD on this election Sunday - because in the meantime it was feared that the AfD could become number one in the country.

That would have been a disastrous signal for the democratic culture in this country: If, for the first time after 1945, a right-wing radical force had succeeded, which Republicans, DVU, NPD and Co. fortunately have been denied for all these years.

Now 20 percent plus X is still a gloomy signal for the AfD, especially if a regional association that operates so clearly on the right-wing fringes as the one in Saxony-Anhalt achieves such a success.

The AfD here has never hidden where the journey would go with them should they take over power in the country.

But that did not seem to deter many voters.

Haseloff therefore did not prevent the AfD, he only prevented the worst.

The trend towards the respective prime minister as a guarantor against an AfD election victory was already evident in the east state elections two years ago: In Brandenburg, the SPD Prime Minister Woidke, in Thuringia the Left Ramelow, benefited from the CDU man Kretschmer.

For this election in Saxony-Anhalt, that means: The voters of the CDU, or better: Reiner Haseloff, have not sent a federal political signal for the Union.

The success of the Saxony-Anhalt CDU may feel comfortable in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus in Berlin, but it has little, too little to do with the performance of the Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet.

But as always with such state elections, it depends on the context: The election is the last before the federal election.

Therefore, it will be interpreted in a similar way to the regional elections in the 2017 federal election year, when the SPD missed victories that were believed to be certain in North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer defended Saarland for the CDU.

After that, nothing was like before for the SPD chancellor candidate Martin Schulz.

This Sunday could actually have ended bitterly for Laschet: What if the AfD had overtaken the CDU?

Laschet would have been immediately confronted with the question of how the Union would react to a strong AfD and whether one should not adopt supposedly more conservative tones in the election campaign.

So it is not to blame Armin Laschet if he is now looking to book Haseloff's solo victory as a tailwind.

It is certainly no coincidence that all CDU grandees spoke the political magic word of "unity" as a prerequisite for a victory in September on this election evening, from Haseloff to CDU General Secretary Paul Ziemiak to Quälgeist retired Friedrich Merz.

The dispute over the candidate for chancellor should now be forgotten.

Nevertheless, both Laschet and Haseloff are in danger.

Haseloff has to be careful that the CDU does not take the reins of action out of his hands, also for the purpose of setting signals in the federal government: for example, by exchanging the Greens in the coalition for the FDP.

Haseloff, on the other hand, would obviously like to continue with Kenya.

At the CDU base in Saxony-Anhalt, which is allowed to vote on the next alliance, the mood is likely to be different.

And Laschet?

The common thread in his election campaign is still missing.

Haseloff had his topic in the defensive fight against the AfD.

For Laschet, of course, that's not enough, the AfD does not pose any national political threat, it will play a minor role in the fall.

Laschet has to create instead of fend off, and that is naturally more difficult.

Why should people vote for the Union?

In Saxony-Anhalt they knew exactly why.

In the federal government, Armin Laschet does not even have an election program on offer.

Even more: Laschet is also in defense mode, but very different from Haseloff, more unproductive: He had to fend off criticism of his corona policy, then the competitor Markus Söder, most recently the CDU right winger Hans-Georg Maaßen and Max Otte.

Reaction instead of action.

Haseloff won because he had a topic.

So far, Armin Laschet has only had problems.