Commentary on the election in Lower Saxony: lifebelt for Scholz

Olaf Scholz was not up for election in Lower Saxony. But the re-elected SPD prime minister, Stephan Weil, gave the badly plucked chancellor a political lifebelt by winning the election. The citizens are so dissatisfied with the work of Scholz and his traffic light coalition that some political observers had already expected a protest election against the Social Democrats.

It turned out differently: the SPD defended the state against Friedrich Merz’s CDU. It hardly matters that the voters ultimately put their trust in the down-to-earth father of the country, Weil, and not in Scholz. That’s how politics works.

Even if there was almost no sign of a chancellor bonus. The strong performance of the Greens, who could now even help govern the country, is all the more astonishing. The eco-electorate doesn’t seem to take offense at their economics minister, Robert Habeck, for his messed-up gas levy and the continued operation of the nuclear power plants. In any case, they didn’t vent their frustration about it in the state elections.