What’s going on with the SPD in Hesse? A political scientist classifies the decline of the party and Nancy Faeser’s election campaign.
Wiesbaden – SPDdisaster in Hesse! As a reminder: The SPD was once the strongest force in this state before it began its decline. And it currently seems unstoppable. Although Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, a well-known government figure, entered the ring, the result was fatal. The paradox: Precisely because Nancy Faeser is a member of the government, the traffic light coalition, this accelerated the decline of the SPD in Hesse. A classification with Werner Weidenfeld, Professor of Political Science at the LMU Munich.
This resulted in the worst Hesse result of all time
Hesse has voted – and expressed its confidence in the incumbent Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU). The ruling CDU is the clear winner of the Hesse election, while the Greens, who have previously co-governed, lost compared to the last state election. The biggest loser is the SPD, whose top candidate plan failed miserably. The Social Democrats are facing their worst Hesse result of all time, the AfD is facing its best. The Left is thrown out of the state parliament, the FDP, like all traffic light parties, loses and has to tremble.
Expert: “Punishment of the traffic light parties”
Weidenfeld sees a “punishment of the traffic light parties” as the main message of this state election. The established parties failed to give the population orientation. “The weakness will continue to advance and the losses will become correspondingly greater.” They are particularly strong in Hesse for the Greens and SPD.
The Social Democrats, who were the prime minister in Hesse almost until the turn of the millennium, are heading for a debacle. Faeser had communicated early on that he would only stay in Hesse if he won the election. Ultimately, she only came third in her constituency. This all-or-nothing game was not a mistake, as Weidenfeld says: “If Faeser had said something different, it would have been dismissed as unbelievable.” The decision for fibers as a candidate was due to a lack of alternatives anyway. Now the (current) chairwoman of the Hesse SPD is returning to Berlin. It looks like she will remain Federal Minister of the Interior. “What else should the SPD and the federal government do,” says Weidenfeld. “You don’t have a ton of talent.”
The CDU is the clear winner with relatively unknown candidates
There are no such worries in the CDU. Prime Minister Boris Rhein, who had been flying under the radar for a long time, couldn’t stop beaming on election day. Rhine has managed to overcome the difficult legacy of the former country’s father Volker Bouffier. According to Weidenfeld, the Frankfurt native contributed significantly to this success. With a “sovereign composure” and “unspectacular humility”. It is clearly a success for the Hessian state CDU. “Tailwind from the federal CDU would be a foreign concept,” says Weidenfeld. The Christian Democrats, who suffered heavy losses in 2018, gained around eight percentage points compared to the last state election. Only the AfD, which is also celebrating in Bavaria, has made gains.
According to Weidenfeld, the AfD, which appears more moderate in Hesse than elsewhere, has consolidated its position in the west. He sees a “protest action against the failure of the established parties to provide orientating solutions” among voters. The politics professor also sees the CDU as responsible. “I’m surprised that the established parties haven’t already made an effort to cure people’s lack of orientation. Because that strengthens the extreme edges.” Not just in Hesse.
To person
Prof. Dr. Dr. hc Werner Weidenfeld is director of the Center for Applied Policy Research (CAP) at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, where he also appears as a professor. The 76-year-old political scientist worked under former Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU) as the federal government’s coordinator for German-American cooperation and has been working at the Brüder-Scholl Institute for Political Science at the LMU Munich since the 1990s.
Interview: Andreas Schmid
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