"The Saarland would like to be picked up from the 1980s": Why the election result is surprising - and what follows from it
Created: 03/28/2022, 00:11
By: Florian Naumann
Oskar Lafontaine in 1985 when he was elected Prime Minister of the Saarland - at that time he was leading an SPD government.
© Sommer/www.imago-images.de
Three-party parliament and possibly a one-man government: Saarland elects an unusual state parliament.
That could pose a challenge.
An analysis.
Saarbrücken/Munich - A memorable Saarland election is over: the SPD won percentages and a position as prime minister.
The CDU and the left were devastated, the FDP and probably the Greens too fell painfully short of the five percent hurdle.
Last but not least, a long-forgotten phenomenon from the early 1980s could celebrate a comeback in the small Saarland: the three-party parliament.
State elections in Saarland deliver surprises: three-party parliament - and an SPD government?
Because that's what the provisional final result from Saarland looks like.
The SPD has the absolute majority - and in the Saarbrücken state parliament is only company from the CDU and AfD.
The three-party constellation shaped the political reality in the Bundestag for decades.
However, with SPD, Union and FDP.
The liberals have always been the ones that tip the scales.
They most recently played off this power when, in 1982, they hoisted Helmut Kohl into the chancellor's office in place of Helmut Schmidt.
Such memories could now be awakened.
But the situation in Saarland is completely different: neither the CDU nor the SPD want to work together with the AfD.
It would also not even do anything for the Christian Democrats.
Even with the divided right-wingers, there would be no majority in the state parliament.
The only open question on Sunday evening was whether new Prime Minister Anke Rehlinger wanted to rely on the seven-vote majority in her parliamentary group - or ultimately bring the CDU on board.
In this case, GroKo would hold 48 of the 51 Saar seats.
An almost bizarre scenario.
And possibly not particularly appealing for the Christian Democrats either: It seems rather questionable that they could push through large demands.
Saarland election: Result against every trend - "The Saarland would like to be picked up from the 1980s"
In any case, the result goes against every federal political trend: For years, political scientists had talked about the consequences of the need for multi-party coalitions.
Most recently, there were at least
four parliamentary groups
in each state parliament - plus non-attached MPs from fragmented AfD groups;
such as in Lower Saxony.
A federal state in which elections will take place in the coming months.
The election researcher Thorsten Faas actually saw himself in a time warp on Sunday evening: "The Saarland would like to be picked up from the 1980s," he initially tweeted.
And was later confirmed: "Absolute majority.
Three parties in Parliament.”
In fact, Oskar Lafontaine, who has now retired due to a dispute, was able to rely on an absolute SPD majority in Saarland in the 1980s.
And this absolute majority is a phenomenon believed to be in the past.
This was last the case in Bavaria in 2013.
According to surveys, Markus Söders CSU can hardly repeat the feat in the coming year.
In Hamburg, the current Federal Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, led an SPD government from 2011 to 2015.
Saarland election a special case?
Parliamentarians from the SPD, CDU and AfD face a delicate task
It remains to be seen whether the unexpected outcome of the election will result in a trend.
However, there were several unusual constellations in Saarland - in addition to a fairly ordinary one.
It happens again and again that smaller parties get caught in the middle of a two-person election campaign, as the Greens and FDP complained.
The fact that two parties, the Left and the Greens, are fiercely fighting internally and the latter - probably also thanks to the Bunt-Saar split - are missing 23 votes should remain a special case.
In any case, the new state parliament in Saarland now faces a major task: the three factions must represent the population.
And that while no less than 22 percent of the votes cast did not find their way into the form of representatives elected to parliament.
In addition to the almost 10 percent votes for the Greens and FDP, there were also 2.6 percent for the left and 9.9 percent for other parties.
(
fn
)