In the weeks leading up to the elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, things are not looking good for the FDP, but they are reasonably certain: They would probably get back into the state parliament, but with a result well below the twelve percent result of the previous election.

Early on Sunday afternoon it still looks like such an election result, but then it goes quickly and steeply downhill towards the five percent mark.

In the evening, the FDP first has to worry about whether it will make it back into the state parliament.

Eckhart Lohse

Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.

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The polling stations have been closed for well over an hour before party chairman Christian Lindner makes a public statement.

He speaks of a "disastrous defeat" for his party.

This did not benefit from the fact that she was co-governing in Düsseldorf.

"This is a very sad evening for us." He recalls his candidacy in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2012 and 2017 and says he is now thinking of his colleagues.

"Cheer up!" he calls out to them.

"Free Democrats win together and lose together." It is a particularly difficult situation for Lindner.

He has been the strong man of the FDP in the federal government for years and still has great influence in North Rhine-Westphalia.

On the evening of the election, Marie-Agens Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), the chairwoman of the Defense Committee in the Bundestag, who has recently attracted attention with harsh public criticism of the Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz, also spoke out.

To justify the poor performance of her party, she says that when there is so much polarization between two people as it is now in North Rhine-Westphalia between the CDU top candidate Hendrik Wüst and the top social democratic man Thomas Kutschaty, it is “always difficult” for the FDP.

Strack-Zimmermann rates the policy of the FDP as “objectively good”.

The FDP's top candidate, Joachim Stamp, speaks of a "bitter defeat" that must be "mercilessly" dealt with.

There can be no such thing as a "continue like this".

For all parties, the state elections in the most populous federal state are also important for their national political weight.

For today's FDP, however, this applies even more than for everyone else.

Two out of four members of the federal government with FDP party membership come from North Rhine-Westphalia, Finance Minister Christian Lindner and Justice Minister Marco Buschmann.

Since Lindner is also the party chairman and the newly elected General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai also comes from North Rhine-Westphalia, the staff from the large federal state also dominates at the top of the party.

The head of the parliamentary group, Christian Dürr, may be from Lower Saxony, but right behind him is the parliamentary director Johannes Vogel, who comes from – right – North Rhine-Westphalia.

In Düsseldorf, the FDP governed relatively silently with the CDU.

The black-yellow coalition also survived the change from CDU Prime Minister Armin Laschet to his successor Hendrik Wüst.

Apparently, the Free Democrats felt comfortable on the side of the CDU.

When the FDP became part of a federal government again in autumn after a nine-year break in government, it first gave the impression that the traffic light alliance with the SPD and the Greens was a great coincidence.

However, this was also due to the fact that the Union had become so paralyzed by years of internal disputes that any possible ally had to have doubts about its stability.

So does the FDP.

But it soon became clear that the traffic light alliance, which was initially inflated, was not a dream constellation.

Not for the FDP either.

The crunching between the red-green part on the one hand and the yellow on the other quickly became unmistakable.

The first major topic where this became clear was the fight against the pandemic.

With its call for a “Freedom Day”, on which most of the protective measures were to be lifted on March 20, the FDP drove its two coalition partners in front of it.

After initial agreement in the reaction to the Russian attack on Ukraine, at least parts of the FDP are looking for a dispute with the Chancellor, especially on the issue of arms deliveries to Ukraine.

The loud appearance in the federal government does not have a positive effect in the federal states.