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Germany’s Christian Democrats won a landslide victory in Sunday’s election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, a huge boost for leader Armin Laschet and a replacement for Chancellor Angela Merkel in September.
The CDU resisted the strong challenge of the German far-right Alternative (AfD), which it sought to capitalize on. the spread of the people Covid-19 on closure.
The projections of the German public broadcaster ARD, traditionally seen as a precise predictor of the final results, put the Christian Democratic Union at 36 per cent, more than 6 points in the last state elections in 2016. The AfD stood at 22.7 per cent, down 1.6 percentage points from the 2016 result.
Projections based on exit polls suggest that the current CDU, led by Reiner Haseloff of the CDU, will have enough seats for the Social Democrats and Greens to remain in power in the regional parliament. But the CDU can also form a partnership with the SPD and the Free Democrats for Business (FDP).
“I’ve been prime minister for ten years, and people know me, they know. . . what I stand for, “Haseloff, a 67-year-old former academic, told ARD.” I think that credibility was a decisive factor. “
He also thanked voters for “building a clear firewall against the far right,” supporting the CDD center-right rather than the AfD.
Some pre-election polls suggested that the AfD could overtake the CDU in second place. Even if that were to happen, however, he would not be in a position to form a government, as no other party is ready to form a coalition with him.
The AfD’s astonishing results in 2016, when it garnered nearly a quarter of the vote, reflected Angela Merkel’s public reaction to liberal immigration policies and more than a million asylum seekers coming to Germany, most from the Middle East, from the north. Africa and Afghanistan.
It was a disappointing night for Merkel, who was a small member of the grand coalition government in the Social Democrats, who saw her share of the vote cut to 2.3 percent, one of the worst results in post-war Germany. Greens rose to 6.6%, 1.4 points more than in 2016.
“We increased the share of votes, but not what we expected,” said Green Chancellor Annalena Baerbock.
The FDP in favor of companies received 6.5% of the vote, 1.6 points more than in 2016. The hard-left Die Linke, whose initiative was once governed by the former Communist Party that ruled East Germany, fell to 10.8%, down from 16.3%. percent five years ago.
Saxony-Anhalt is a small state with a voting age of only 1.8m. German unification plunged into a recovering economic depression and the population had shrunk by 24 per cent since 1990, when young people moved west in search of better jobs.
The state will also face more economic upheavals in the coming decades as Germany begins to close its lignite mines (a major employer in Saxony-Anhalt) in an effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The result was the victory of Armin Laschet, the prime minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state in Germany, who will be the joint candidate of the CSU and his sister-in-law Bavarian CSU in the September federal elections. Angela Merkel has been chancellor for 16 years.
The CDU collapsed in the polls earlier this year, frustrating people with the slow pace of the vaccination campaign, and a corruption scandal linked to the clutch of Christian Democrat MPs.
There have also been doubts about Laschet’s ability to win the Bundestag election, which was exploited by Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder in his bid to run for the CDU / CSU chancellor, which sparked a fierce power struggle. Laschet hopes that the decisive result in Saxony-Anhalt will definitely dispel any doubts.
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