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SPD leader Saskia Esken
Photo: Christophe Gateau / dpa
Despite the electoral failure in Schleswig-Holstein, Saskia Esken is convinced that the SPD will be successful in the state elections next Sunday in North Rhine-Westphalia.
»In North Rhine-Westphalia we don't play on the pitch - we play for a win!
I'm very confident that the new prime minister will be called Thomas Kuchaty," she told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
According to the provisional official results, Prime Minister Daniel Günther's CDU emerged as the clear winner in the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein.
The Christian Democrats achieved a share of the vote of 43.4 percent.
It achieved the best election result in the federal state since 1983. The SPD, on the other hand, slipped to its historically worst result with 16.0 percent (minus 11.3 points) and even fell behind the Greens.
They, in turn, achieved their best election result to date with 18.3 percent (plus 5.4 points).
With 4.4 percent, the AfD flew out of a state parliament for the first time in Germany (minus 1.5 points).
Günther is now free to choose his coalition partners, but has already announced that he will be in talks with the Greens and the FDP about continuing the Jamaica coalition.
However, this would not be necessary.
He could also govern comfortably with just one coalition partner - be it the Greens, the FDP or the SSW, which Günther has already more or less rejected.
Both the Greens and the FDP have already made it clear that they are also available for a two-party alliance.
Esken denied that the poor performance of the Social Democrats in the north was related to Chancellor Olaf Scholz's (SPD) Ukraine policy.
“The result in Schleswig-Holstein has nothing to do with any of that.
It was a state election with state issues – and above all an extremely popular prime minister,” she said, referring to Günther, who won the election.
Günther's appearance is "in clear contrast to rather rowdy party friends" such as federal party leader Friedrich Merz, CSU leader Markus Söder or "occasionally" the North Rhine-Westphalian state leader Hendrik Wüst (CDU).
Laschet is happy about the defeat of the AfD
Cheering from the Greens: "People in the country missed us such a good result because they think the work of the Greens over the past ten years is right and good," said co-lead candidate Aminata Touré of the "Rheinische Post".
That's why it's not so easy to bypass the Greens.
"In the last five years, people did not like the cooperation between the CDU and FDP, but that we governed as a three-way constellation that represented different social groups in the form of parties," emphasized Touré.
Many people have bad memories of the recent black and yellow government from 2009 to 2012.
The deputy leader of the FDP, Kubicki, spoke of an average result for his party and campaigned for an alliance with the CDU with his party.
Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, on the other hand, campaigned for a black-green government in Kiel.
"There are two winners: Daniel Günther and the Greens," said Habeck on ZDF.
The CDU is certainly smart enough to interpret the result correctly, said the former environment minister of the northernmost federal state.
The former CDU leader and candidate for chancellor, Armin Laschet, welcomed the departure of the AfD from the Kiel state parliament.
Election Sunday was a "good day for democracy," Laschet said.
The AfD was defeated "not with populist slogans, not with talk of a conservative revolution, not with a shift to the right and resentment, but with a clear course for the center, modernity, cosmopolitanism".
as /dpa/AFP
