Five-percent hurdle: Liberals tremble for entry into state parliament

The Liberals still have to worry about their entry into the state parliament on Sunday evening. In the extrapolations of ARD and ZDF, the FDP held for hours to the scarce value of five percent (extrapolation 22:47 clock) - ie the pause clause for a move into parliament. FDP's leading candidate Martin Hagen said in Munich: "Of course we would like to have less trembling tonight."

The FDP leadership in Berlin made the best out of the situation. Bavaria has always been a difficult patch for the FDP, according to party leader Christian Lindner. "But today, after a dedicated election campaign, we have the optimism that at the end of this evening in Bavaria there will be the tenth parliamentary group of Free Democrats in Germany." That was "a success".

There is a risk waiting

The FDP leader is interested in a government participation in Bavaria. On Friday, Lindner told SPIEGEL: "CSU and Free Voters are already promoting us behind the scenes." Participation in a "bourgeois alliance" favored by Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) on election night could therefore be in favor of the FDP should it not be enough for a coalition of CSU and "free voters". His party was, if they come in the state parliament, ready to start talks, so the Bavarian FDP leading candidate Martin Hagen. "Our numbers are known," said the 37-year-old communications consultant with a view to the CSU.

One thing is clear: for the FDP, going to a state government led by Söder would be a risk. The memories of the last coalition with the CSU are anything but good. After all, the party had come from the extra-parliamentary opposition in 2008 with a result of at least eight percent in the Bavarian state government - and finally fly out of the state parliament five years later. Own mistakes, the then poor image of the FDP in the black-and-yellow coalition in the Bund and the little FDP-friendly course of the then Prime Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) led in the end to the fact that the Liberals in autumn 2013 fell well below five percent.

The liberals are warned.