SPIEGEL ONLINE: The CSU has experienced a historic bankruptcy in Bavaria, hit even harder the SPD. Is the concept of the Popular Party in Germany outdated?

Werner Weidenfeld: We are currently experiencing an era in the party system. The traditional parties have dramatically lost their binding effect. The CSU seemed so far immune to what previously experienced CDU and SPD. But now the CSU is also caught up in this wave.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are the Greens on the way to the new People's Party?

Weidenfeld: The Greens have become a bourgeois party. We all want to protect nature and save the climate and so on. And otherwise we are friendly and like to smile. Many can identify with it.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You do not sound convinced ...

Weidenfeld: Yes, because success conveys more than just the answer to one or the other programmatic detail position.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Will the CSU rethink after this result, even break new ground?

Weidenfeld: The fate of the CSU depends on that. If the CSU only says: Hach, that was sad, but actually we are the true Bavarian party, then they will continue on the path of the last few years. Namely down. Old Bavaria, to which the party invokes, does not exist anymore. In recent years, many people have traveled, incidentally, from Germany. So this is no longer the old Bavarian traditional society. But already yesterday evening you could experience how good the CSU is in reinterpreting the mood. And how difficult it is for her to take consequences. Then suddenly it was said that you had not lost so much. Only ten percent loss, next to nothing. If this continues, that would be fatal for the party.

Landtag election Bavaria 2018

Preliminary final result

Total vote result

Shares in percent

Christian Social Union

37.2

-10.5

SPD

9.7

-10.9

Free voters

11.6

+2.6

green

17.5

+8.9

FDP

5.1

+1.8

The left

3.2

+1.1

AFD

10.2

+10.2

other

5.4

-3.3

allocation of seats

Total: 205

Majority: 103 seats

22

38

27

11

85

22

SPD (22)

Green (38)

Free Voters (27)

FDP (11)

CSU (85)

AfD (22)

Source: Provincial Returning Officer

Results in detail

SPIEGEL ONLINE: A coalition with the Free Voters is considered likely. Is that actually the CSU coalition with the CSU?

Weidenfeld: Yes. The Free Voters are meat from the meat of the CSU. Programmatically, the two parties have almost no differences. In recent years, the CSU has taken over again and again initiatives of the FW, be it the additional high school year or the abolition of tuition.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why did people even choose FW instead of CSU?

Weidenfeld: Because the Free Voters are actually different from the CSU on one point - they are a Kümmerer party, always there. That's how they grew up. The FW do not convince their voters with a big, new concept. But because they are there when the street lights in the village do not work.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What changes can be expected from such a black-orange alliance?

Weidenfeld: This coalition is the simplest and most convenient solution, that's very clear. There will be no big changes.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The personnel debate has postponed the CSU once. Is Horst Seehofer still durable?

Weidenfeld: No. What we are currently experiencing is a production that is planned for every day and hour. On election night, everyone has rejected a personnel debate, not to make himself a bogeyman, who kicked them off. Anyway, before the Hesse election on October 28, it should not come to a scandal. Then it gets serious. In the medium term it is clear: Seehofer will not remain CSU boss.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And Markus Söder?

Weidenfeld: He will survive. Söder has long pushed for renewal. He has been prevented from doing that for as long. Therefore, you can not make him, who has been in office for so short, the main culprit. CSU