State election Saarland 2022: The top candidates at a glance
Created: 03/21/2022, 10:16 am
Fighting for the office of Prime Minister in the state elections in Saarland on March 27: Incumbent Tobias Hans (CDU, left) and Economics Minister Anke Rehlinger (SPD) © Oliver Dietze /dpa
18 parties are contesting the state elections in Saarland on election day.
According to surveys, the decision will be between two of them.
All top candidates at a glance.
Saarbrücken – On Sunday, March 27, 2022, a new state parliament will be elected in Saarland, as the legislative period of the CDU-led government under Prime Minister Tobias Hans is coming to an end.
In principle, all Germans who have reached the age of eighteen on the day of the election, have been resident in Saarland for at least three months or otherwise usually reside there and are not otherwise excluded from the right to vote are entitled to vote.
The state elections in Saarland are so-called proportional representation.
This means that citizens can vote for the members of the state parliament, and the sum of the votes cast determines the number of seats a party has.
Voters have exactly one vote on their ballot papers.
They vote for a party's electoral lists: the state list and the constituency list.
State elections in Saarland – which parties will compete in Saarland in 2022?
The CDU and SPD currently rule in Saarland under the leadership of Prime Minister Tobias Hans (CDU).
Incumbent Tobias Hans is fighting for his position in the 2022 election.
He competes against Anke Rehlinger from the SPD.
A total of 18 parties are running in the state elections:
CDU
SPD
The left
AfD
Green
FDP
The family party
pirates
Free voters
the base
colourful.saar
ÖDP
The humanists
The party
The Party for Health Research
Animal Welfare Party
SGV
volt
State elections in Saarland – the most important top candidates at a glance
Tobias Hans (CDU)
Tobias Hans has been Prime Minister of Saarland since 2018 and was elected number one in the state list with 96 percent of the votes.
On March 1, 2018, the politician followed Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as head of government, who switched to federal politics as CDU general secretary.
In 2022, the state list of the CDU will have equal numbers of women and men for the first time.
Hans is followed by education politician Jutta Schmitt-Lang, state chairman of the Christian Democratic Workers' Union, Marc Speicher, and entrepreneur Ute Mücklich-Heinrich.
Despite poor poll numbers, Tobias Hans is optimistic in the run-up to the election: "The national trend is massively against us - in all state associations." Therefore, bad election forecasts "do not upset him, even if we have to fight".
Anke Rehlinger (SPD)
At the Saarland retreat of the SPD, Anke Rehlinger was nominated as the top candidate for the state elections in Saarland.
The Saarland needs "a leadership that has an idea of the future," said Rehlinger immediately after her nomination.
For the Minister for Economic Affairs, Labour, Energy and Transport, her goal was clear from the start: "My goal is to become Prime Minister of this country." According to current surveys, this wishful thinking is actually possible: more than 40 percent would like it Anke Rehlinger as the new Prime Minister of Saarland.
Anke Rehlinger's specifications for a future state government led by the SPD: health care, digitization, education and the environment, maintaining jobs, creating jobs, investments in technologies,
Barbara Spaniol (The Left)
At the Left Party Congress, Barbara Spaniol received 85.1 percent of the votes, and there were no opposing candidates.
Spaniol is chairwoman of the two-strong Saar-Linke parliamentary group in the state parliament.
At the beginning of November 2021, she was expelled from the “Die Linke” faction led by Oskar Lafontaine.
This decision was justified with a disturbed relationship of trust, as Spaniol was accused of being too close to the state chairman Thomas Lutze.
Your goals for the Saarland of the future: Spaniol wants to fight for more educational equality.
"Day care centers and schools must have priority." Spaniol also promotes higher wages for employees in the health system.
The district chairwoman of Neunkirch, Andrea Neumann, took second place in the state list, while Mark Baumeister, managing director of the food, indulgence and restaurants trade union, took third place.
Lisa Becker (Greens)
After the state chairwoman Uta Sullenberger withdrew her candidacy for the post, the lawyer Lisa Becker was nominated.
Becker has been the first councilor of the city of Blieskastel since 2019.
She is responsible for the business areas of the public order office, culture and tourism.
The focus of the election campaign is primarily on climate protection and education.
In concrete terms, this means: strengthening organic agriculture, reducing the conversion of agricultural land, expanding photovoltaics, wind power and cycle paths, introducing a "forest protection law", expanding digitization in schools, combating child poverty, increasing funds for social housing and the introduction a 365 euro ticket.
Climate protection is to be included as a national goal in the country's constitution.
Kai Melling (AfD)
The AfD will also run for elections - but without a state list, as the state election committee decided.
Immediately after his nomination as the AfD's top candidate, Kai Melling announced that the AfD would be "the only real opposition" in the Saarland state parliament.
In his speech, he railed against the Corona measures.
These are "absurd" and would show what life is like in a country that "is governed by the pharmaceutical industry".
Boris Huebner came in second on the state list, and Christoph Schaufert in third place.
State elections in Saarland 2022: This is how the seats are distributed
