Angela Merkel's conservative party suffered a major electoral setback in Hamburg on Sunday, where the Social Democrats retain their stronghold despite the spectacular push by the Greens. The CDU, which has been looking for both a leader and a coherent line since the Chancellor’s designated runner-up threw in the towel in mid-February, fell to third place in the regional parliament, with just over 11% of the vote, against 15.9% in the last election in 2015, according to estimates communicated by the public channels ARD and ZDF.
Second worst regional score for CDU
"It is a bitter day for the CDU", deplored secretary general Paul Ziemak, judging that the confusion fueled by his party in the regional state of Thuringia, where he successively approached the extreme right and then the far left, "did not help". The conservatives have wiped out in Hamburg, a prosperous port city of 1.3 million voters, their second worst regional score since a scathing 9% in the city-state of Bremen in 1951.
The Social Democrats (SPD), although clearly losing momentum at the national level, retain their heads with 37% of the votes, but see their Green allies jump from 12.3% to more than 25% of the votes, a reflection of the wave of ecology that is sweeping the country since the European elections in May 2019. “We have a very delicate situation for democracy in Germany, and the CDU is absorbed by its own problems (…) It will be up to us to give the country an orientation "Commented the national co-leader of the Greens, Robert Habeck, now perceived as a pretender to the chancellery.
Another lesson from this election: after being installed since 2014 in the sixteen regional parliaments of the country, the extreme right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) could for the first time be ejected: the party flirts with the threshold the 5% required to be represented. Given at the beginning of the evening at 4.7%, against 6.1% in 2015, the training nevertheless went up in a range of 5 to 5.1% in later estimates. The AfD, which already attracted little in this cosmopolitan city, is strongly questioned since the racist attack which left nine dead Thursday evening in Hanau (center).
Merkel's estate is preparing
Despite the defeat, the Conservatives must now think quickly about the future. The members of the CDU must thus reveal Monday in the middle of the day who they intend to carry at their head and how, in order to prepare the succession of Angela Merkel for the horizon 2021, but they will have to clarify their positioning in the face of extremes. So far the party has camped on a “ni-ni” line, excluding any alliance with the AfD as with the far left party Die Linke, but the fragmentation of the German political landscape makes this rule more and more difficult to hold.
Faced with the turmoil which agitated the movement, the crucial choice of the future candidate for the chancellery should be postponed until the end of the year, according to German media. In the meantime, a party president should be appointed at a special convention in May or June. Unless the CDU opts for an interim collegial presidency bringing together the different currents.
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