State win gives Merkel’s conservatives ‘tailwind’ for national polls

Magdeburg, Germany (dpa) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives scored a better-than-forecast win in a key state election on Sunday, helping to set the stage for the national ballot in about three months.

Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) under Premier Reiner Haseloff in the small eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt secured 37.1 per cent of the vote, representing an increase of over 7 per cent since the last election in 2016, according to preliminary results.

The CDU’s win in Saxony-Anhalt represents a boost to Armin Laschet, who has struggled to gain political momentum since he was selected in April to head up the party’s September national election campaign as its chancellor candidate.

Haseloff joined national CDU party leaders claiming the CDU’s win on Sunday as a good omen for the national election in three months.

“Of course, this also gives us a tailwind for Berlin,” Ralph Brinkhaus, a CDU parliamentary leader, told German public television ARD.

The September election will also mark the beginning of the post-Merkel era, with the German leader exiting the political stage following the election after 16 years in power.

Still, only 12 per cent of voters said Laschet’s candidacy made a difference in the election, according to the exit polls.

After a neck-and-neck election campaign with the CDU, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) will remain the second-biggest bloc in the new state parliament after the AfD’s vote slipped to 20.8 per cent following a swing against the party of over 3 per cent.

Sunday’s result was a “clear message to the outside world” about the role of the far right in German political life, Haseloff told  ARD.

But the AfD result again highlights eastern Germany as a bastion of the party’s support, with Sunday’s vote more than double the party’s current standing in national opinion polls.

The Saxony-Anhalt result was also significantly higher than the AfD’s result in two western state elections held in March, where the party’s vote was below 10 per cent.

All other Saxony-Anhalt parties have ruled out working with the AfD, which attempted to make Germany’s tough anti-pandemic lockdown measures an election issue.

As have other right-wing populist parties around the world, the AfD claimed the measures were a threat to freedom, describing them as “a corona dictatorship.”

However, the fall in new coronavirus infections and a steady rollout of vaccines are likely to have played into Haseloff’s CDU’s hands.

About 81 per cent of Saxony-Anhalt voters surveyed by pollsters Forschungsgruppe Wahlen believed Haseloff was doing a good job.

Sunday’s election also represented something of a setback for Laschet’s current main challenger to succeed Merkel at the helm of Europe’s biggest economy, Green Party chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock.

The Greens posted only a very modest gain from 5.2 per cent in 2016 to 5.9 per cent in Sunday’s election, with support for the ecological party in the eastern part of the nation having for a long time trailed behind the western part of the nation.

National opinion polls have shown the Greens within reach of emerging as the biggest parliamentary bloc after the September election, as a result of concern about global warming and under the party’s new leadership.

However, the Saxony-Anhalt result fell well short of the Greens’ record high for eastern Germany – 10.8-per-cent in the 2019 state poll in neighbouring Brandenburg.

In addition, the Greens may have to make way for the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) in Haseloff’s ruling three-party coalition after the FDP bounced back into the regional parliament on Sunday following a 10-year absence.

The CDU in Saxony-Anhalt has made little secret of its interest in the FDP joining Haseloff’s government for its third term.

Sunday’s was also another miserable election day for the centre-left Social Democrats, whose vote slumped to an historic low of 8 per cent.