Bitter defeat for the Christian Democrats who lose power after 23 years
The German Social Democrats (SPD) emerged this Sunday as overwhelming winners of the regional elections in the small federal state of Saarland, where the provisional final results even gave them a clear absolute majority in the Saarbrücken parliament. The result is a boost for Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, six months after his victory in the legislative elections in Germany and the confirmation that the SPD is currently the leading political force in this country. The big losers of the day in the first regional elections of the four held in this country in 2022 were the Christian Democrats (CDU), dethroned by their hitherto minor coalition partner after more than four decades in power. The architect of the Social Democratic victory was his candidate for the head of government and until now Saar Minister of Economy, Anke Rehlinger, who clearly prevailed over the already outgoing Prime Minister, the conservative Tobias Hans, and has had great support from the electorate.
So much so that the Christian Democratic Union and its new president, Friedrich Merz, already declared the elections lost at an official meeting of their executive earlier in the week, according to various media leaks. Hans’s defeat was so predictable that neither Merz nor any other prominent national conservative leader has bothered to travel to the region bordering France to support their candidate during the campaign. Bitter was also the failure of The Left, which was expelled from the regional parliament, largely due to the resignation and delivery of the membership card of the founder of the party and former president of the SPD Oskar Lafontaine. Although it will have three seats, the ultranationalists of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) also lose strength and percentages compared to the previous elections. On the contrary, both the Greens and the Liberal Party (FDP) failed again in their attempt to return to the regional chamber, as they did not overcome the barrier of 5% of votes.
The official results give the Social Democrats more than 43.5% of the vote, almost 14 points more than five years ago, while the Christian Democrats fell to 28.5% of the vote, after losing 12.2 points. The Greens were left out of the regional parliament by the minimum, achieving 4.99% of the vote. They were only 23 votes short of exceeding the mandatory threshold, while the FDP lacked 1,003 votes to achieve it and reached 4.8%. The loss of 10.3 points compared to the previous elections sank The Left by 2.7% and only the AfD among the small formations won three seats in the Saarbrücken chamber. The final result grants the Social Democrats 29 of the 51 deputies in parliament, compared to the 19 that the CDU will have and the 3 of the far-right populists.
“This is the result of hard work in recent years. We have been able to recover the trust of the electorate,” Rehlinger said just 20 minutes after the closing of the polling stations, joining his co-religionists to celebrate the victory. The future prime minister of the Saarland, a former athlete who has held the regional record in shot put for almost 30 years, said that the priority will be to give stability to the future executive. The victory in the Saar unleashed the enthusiasm of the Social Democrats in the German capital. The general secretary of the party, Kevin Kühnert, spoke of an “overwhelming victory” and an “incredible boost” for his formation. His colleague from the CDU, Mario Czaja, however, played down the importance of the result because it was “only a regional election”. The German conservatives fear that the Social Democrats will continue to chain victories in the next elections that will take place in the federal states of Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and, above all, in North Rhine Westphalia, the most populous state in the country with 16 million inhabitants. .
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