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In the state elections in Baden-Württemberg, the Greens under Winfried Kretschmann can look forward to a strong election result, in Rhineland-Palatinate the SPD top candidate Malu Dreyer can consolidate her position.
The CDU, on the other hand, is punished in both countries.
The chances of CDU party leader Armin Laschet at the Chancellery are discussed in the international press.
“Almost everything is still possible in Germany this election year,” writes the Austrian
“Die Presse”
- “except for one SPD triumph.
The Greens currently have the strongest tailwind, but it will hardly carry them to the Chancellery.
Laschet still has the best cards if he keeps his nerve, keeps Söder quiet, no new scandals arise and Germany is vaccinated by September.
If, if, if.
The CDU boss is weakened. "
The Swiss
“Neue Zürcher Zeitung”
expects political consequences for the federal government
: “The double downward trend of the CDU should reach as far as Berlin and strengthen the centrifugal forces in the government.
It gets lonely for Angela Merkel.
Your parliamentary group will not accept the prospect of losing seats in the federal election in September.
(...) The results are likely to have a decisive impact on the ambitions of the new CDU chairman Armin Laschet and on the coalition arithmetic in future elections.
Laschet is not responsible for the greed of some members of the Union who earned a golden nose in the pandemic.
He is still ailing.
So far he has not found the right words to set up and direct an insecure party. "
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The British
Times also
sees Laschet under pressure: “The race for the successor to Angela Merkel is completely open again due to the historically poor results of her party in two regional elections that mark the beginning of the federal election campaign.
(...) The rejections at the ballot boxes suggest that the dominance that the CDU has enjoyed since the beginning of the pandemic could weaken after a bribe scandal and growing dissatisfaction with the way the corona crisis was dealt with.
That should increase the political pressure on Armin Laschet, the new chairman of the party, who hopes to replace Merkel in September.
Laschet's difficulties could pave the way for his arch-rival Markus Söder, the Bavarian Prime Minister, to run. "
The Swiss
“Tagesanzeiger”
regards Söder's candidacy for chancellor
as a humiliation for the Christian Democrats: “The historically bad results of the CDU (...) are also the acknowledgment for the upset mood in the country and for our own failure.
There are some indications that the CDU will not find its way back to dominance of the first year of the pandemic until the federal elections in autumn.
To this day, a lot of trust in the party is held in the Chancellor, and she will soon resign.
It is completely unclear who will follow her - even whether it will be anyone from the CDU or CSU at all.
Governments without the Christian Democrats, be it a traffic light coalition with the Greens, SPD and FDP or an alliance on the left, are no longer entirely unthinkable.
The most important decision in the Union as to who should be candidate for chancellor is still to come: Armin Laschet, the new CDU leader, does not inspire people inside or outside the party.
CSU boss Markus Söder is more popular, but his freestyle would be a humiliation for the CDU.
The election campaign in the next few months should be more exciting than expected. "
State elections as regional special events?
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In Germany, many commentators do not want to read a trend for the upcoming federal election from the results, as they attribute the results primarily to the individual strength of the top candidates.
The
“Heilbronn Voice”
comments
: “The best result in the history of the Greens is a Kretschmann triumph that will never be achievable without him.
The enormous popularity of the 72-year-old played the decisive role.
Many people from Baden-Württemberg identify with him and his gnarled, citizen-oriented manner. The party affiliation is almost irrelevant.
(...) In addition, there was an unpopular and clumsy top candidate who, as minister of education, turned almost all parents, headmasters and teachers against her. "
The
"Süddeutsche Zeitung"
does not
believe that the results can be transferred one-to-one to the federal election
: "Not too much can be deduced for the federal election (...) - In state elections, people put their basic convictions aside, provided that they are the staff the actually not preferred party suits the party better.
That is why the Greens and the SPD stay in power in the Christian Democratic states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate.
However, when it comes to the federal government, deep-seated basic beliefs remain dominant. "
The
“Märkische Oderzeitung” also
states “What the Bundestag parties have learned from the voters in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate is by no means clear.
Recognized, popular personalities were re-elected.
That says little about the enthusiasm for their parties. ”Nevertheless, this could be a warning signal for the CDU, warns the newspaper.
"The CDU has to be very careful that it does not become the next and last party that has had its day as a people's party," it continues.
"Downward trend continued"
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The
“Allgemeine Zeitung”
from Mainz
makes a similar statement
.
“The worst election results of the post-war period make it clear that the Union is already troubled by the vacuum of the post-Merkel era.
For far too long, the CDU and CSU have weighed in on the supposed security of the only remaining people's party.
The dispute over the direction between socio-political openness and conservative longing has not been settled even after two chairman elections.
And the Union continues to leave the future issue of climate change to the Greens. "
The
“Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”
calls the Union's poor performance a “debacle”.
“The downward trend of the past few years continued unabated.
This is a debacle for the CDU.
The mask affair alone will not explain that.
(...) Responsible for the decline of the CDU in Baden-Württemberg is the double blow that a new star does not want to rise in the state and the star in the federal government is just going down. "
The
"Münchner Merkur
" even sees the Chancellor's complicity in the poor performance of the CDU.
“In a downright fit of anger, the voters of the CDU brought a historical debacle to their former home countries.
(...) And the Chancellor?
Your people spread that Angela Merkel gave up the chairmanship of the party a long time ago.
But the helpless diletting of the old CDU state party and its ministers in the deepest crisis since the war, which has cost too many lives and livelihoods, is mainly due to them. "
"The great tremor"
From the point of view of the
"Kölnische Rundschau"
, the Union should learn from the election above all the lesson that it should put up a strong candidate for Chancellor.
“The big tremors started yesterday for the CDU.
The new CDU boss Armin Laschet did not have a nice evening.
Distinguished politicians win elections.
That is a clear lesson from this election.
And here, according to all the surveys, CSU boss Markus Söder is clearly ahead of Laschet on the question of the candidate for chancellor. "
The
“Berliner Tagesspiegel”
strikes a similar note
.
Accordingly, the two elections clearly show the Christian Democrats that “their political staff cannot yet carry them into the post-Merkel era”.
Therefore, it now depends on the right choice of the candidate for chancellor.
The ability to connect to other parties is no longer decisive.
Rather, it is about who has the greatest chance of success with the voters.
“In the end, it can be a neck-and-neck race with the Greens.
And then it will depend on the candidate for chancellor.
However, on both sides. "
FDP benefits
The
“Frankfurter Rundschau”
commented on the election with regard to possible coalitions in the federal election: “Even before the election, the stabilization of the FDP that was emerging led to the intellectual restart of a popular object of speculation: the traffic light.
That could be really interesting with a view to the federal government: the Free Democratic Party as facilitator of a green or social democratic chancellorship. "
The
“Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” also
draws attention to the election success of the FDP in Baden-Württemberg: “In addition to Free Voters and Greens, the Liberals are winners, deservedly.
As a critical but constructive opposition, they have repeatedly pointed out undesirable developments over the past few months.
It looks like Christian Lindner's lonely decision not to allow Angela Merkel to take control of him when the federal government was last formed will pay off in the end. "
The
"Mitteldeutsche Zeitung"
already gives an outlook on the next state elections in Saxony-Anhalt.
“
The elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate are likely to have been a stroll for the CDU compared to what the Union is facing in June in Saxony-Anhalt.
There it is important to defend power in an inharmonious coalition and to keep one's own centrifugal forces in the direction of the AfD in check ”.