The German conservatives, in the opposition at the federal level, yesterday won the regional elections in Bavaria and Hesse, federated states where coalitions led by the two sister parties already governed: the Bavarian Christian Social CSU in their territory since 1957 and the Christian Democrat CDU in Hesse , for 24 years. Despite the victory, the CSU obtained its worst historical result, worse than the one obtained in the 2018 elections, when it lost its absolute majority.
The three parties of the federal government – social democrats, environmentalists and liberals – could do little in these two conservative bastions, but they also finally obtained weaker results overall than in the previous elections in 2018. The liberal FDP was left out of the Bavarian Parliament by not obtain the required minimum of 5%, and last night he feared that he would also be left out of the Hessian chamber. In Germany, länder elections are held every five years. In Bavaria some 9.4 million voters were called to the polls and in Hesse some 4.3 million.
The SPD suffered its umpteenth bad result in Bavaria, a land that has always resisted it, but also in Hesse it had to endure a more personalized setback. The Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, was running in those elections as a social democratic candidate, who last night described the result as “disappointing.”
To the alarm of the rest of the political spectrum, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) also reaped large amounts of votes in the two länder, where according to the polls it could obtain second place. The far-right co-leader, Alice Weidel, declared herself “extremely proud” of the results and predicted that, although her party is once again excluded from the government coalitions, the Union – that is, the historical alliance of the CDU and CSU – will have to accept that one day he will have to count on the AfD as an ally to be able to pursue conservative politics.
According to the projections of the public broadcaster ARD awaiting the final scrutiny, in Bavaria the conservative CSU garnered 36.7% of the votes, when five years ago it had obtained 37.2%, which was already its worst result. It would be followed by the AfD (15.9%) and the Greens (14.8%). The right-wing regional party Free Electors (FW), current government partner of the Christian Social president, Markus Söder, would have come next with 15.3%. The social democratic SPD gathered a meager 7.9%.
With these wicks, Markus Söder is in a position to reissue his pact with FW, and also his counterpart in Hesse, the Christian Democrat Boris Rhein, who governs in coalition with the environmentalists, could repeat the alliance. However, Rhein could also look for another partner, since the national leader of the CDU, Friedrich Merz, has declared the environmentalists as the main rival to beat.
In Hesse, always according to the exit polls on German public television in the absence of a closed vote, the Christian Democrats CDU obtained 34.5% of the votes, and second place would have gone to the extreme right, with 18%. The social democrat SDP would be close to 15%, and the Greens 14.9%.
The Christian Socialist Söder had already announced in the campaign his willingness to repeat a coalition with FW. So much so that, when the scandal of an anti-Semitic and Nazi leaflet from 1987 linked to the leader of FW and vice president of Bavaria, Hubert Aiwanger, broke out in the middle of the pre-campaign, Söder kept him in office arguing that there was no evidence, for what dismissing him would be “disproportionate.” Last night Söder said that talks with Aiwanger's party will begin immediately. For decades, CSU leaders said that there could be no party to their right in the Munich parliament; now there are two: FW and the AfD.
