Social Democrats clearly the strongest force in Saarland

Berlin The starting position for Tobias Hans was actually pretty good: For five years and 13 state elections, no incumbent head of government has been voted out. Due to the office bonus, it seemed that the incumbent was unbeatable in the end. Until this Sunday in Saarland. Until SPD top candidate Anke Rehlinger incumbent CDU Prime Minister Tobias Hans inflicted a rough defeat. “The Saarland voted red,” said Rehlinger.

According to the first projections from ARD and ZDF, the Social Democrats gained more than 13 points and came to 43.1 to 43.8 percent. The CDU performed historically poorly with 27.5 to 27.6 percent. The AfD reached 5.5 percent, the Greens 5.6 to 5.8 and the FDP 4.9 to 5.0. Above all, the Free Democrats have to worry about entering the state parliament. The Left should fly out of the state parliament in Saarbrücken with 2.6 to 2.7 percent.

A look at the past shows what little sensation the SPD achieved. Since a certain Oskar Lafontaine won the Saar elections in 1994, the SPD has not provided the prime minister in the smallest area.

Now Rehlinger is following in the footsteps of the former SPD figurehead who later deserted. And possibly with an absolute majority. The last time the SPD managed to recapture a federal state was nine years ago.

Top jobs of the day

Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.

The election in the small Saarland had been declared in advance to be a major mood test. It was both the first state election for the new SPD dual leadership of Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil and the first mood test for the new CDU leader Friedrich Merz. And of course the first hard demoscopic stress test for the traffic light coalition in the federal government.

And so the election winners and losers interpreted the outcome very differently. The SPD also sees the election result as a vote of confidence in the traffic lights in the federal government and as a signal for the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia in May.

SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert spoke of a “landslide victory” that gave “an incredible tailwind”. In Schleswig-Holstein as well as in North Rhine-Westphalia, the SPD sees opportunities to challenge the CDU prime ministers for their offices.

While the SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil was happy about the election result, the other new party leader was served. The CDU leader Friedrich Merz, who was only elected in January, is now starting the 2022 election year with a bitter election defeat.

The CDU admitted defeat. Prime Minister Hans spoke of a “bitter result” and announced that he would take action. The federal CDU did not want to attach too much importance to the result. Regional factors were decisive in the choice.

In fact, state issues and, above all, the candidate factor played a major role in the Saarland election. There is no other way to explain why the federal state so clearly decoupled from the national trend. While the SPD recently lost slightly in nationwide surveys and the Union was able to gain ground, it was exactly the opposite in Saarland: Here the CDU steadily lost ground, while the SPD grew stronger and stronger.

Of course I will draw personal consequences. Tobias Hans

For Hans it was the first election campaign as a top candidate, he had only taken over the office from Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer in 2018 after her move to federal politics. Hans’ tenure was significantly influenced by the corona crisis, in which he did not always look happy. First he called for tough rules, then he declared Saarland to be a “model test country” for far-reaching easing.

The election campaign did not go according to plan either. In the hot phase of the election campaign, the 44-year-old dropped out due to a corona disease, his campaign workers drove through the country with an iPad so that Hans was somehow present. Then Hans had to take criticism and malice for a selfie anger video in front of a gas station, which he recorded because of the high gas prices.

With the ever-worsening poll numbers, the federal party also made itself rare, and Merz canceled an election campaign appearance in Saarland last Thursday. Reason: He was “indispensable” in Berlin during the budget week in the Bundestag. At this point, the federal CDU had long expected a defeat in Saarland and tried to gain as much distance as possible from Hans.

Rehlinger, on the other hand, was able to work on her image as a carer close to the people in the street election campaign. The entire SPD leadership, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, traveled to the other end of the country to support their own top candidates.

Rehlinger drew from experience

And while Hans was criticized for his gas station video, Rehlinger, in her capacity as deputy head of the SPD federal party, negotiated the second relief package from the traffic light coalition. The message behind it was clear: While Hans complains about high fuel prices in selfies, Rehlinger provides relief.

But that was not the only reason for the election victory. Rehlinger also used her experience. The 45-year-old has been a minister since 2012, deputy head of government since 2014, and was the top candidate in 2017. Even then, Rehlinger was ahead in the polls, but then surprisingly lost significantly to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU).

The fact that Rehlinger was able to convert the good polls into an outstanding election result this time is also due to the fact that she has increasingly won the trust of business. Many entrepreneurs in the Saar trust her more than Hans to steer the structurally weak federal state through the period of great economic upheaval. So says Saar-IHK boss Carsten Meier: “The Minister of Economics is very good in the topics, a very good discussion partner and close to the people.”

Rehlinger’s down-to-earth manner was well received throughout Saarland: When asked who they would prefer to see in the state chancellery after the election, according to the ZDF political barometer, 51 percent answered Rehlinger shortly before the election, while Hans only got 31 percent. The fact that a challenger is so clearly ahead of the incumbent in personal polls is extremely unusual and a key reason for Rehlinger’s election victory.

Clear loser

Prime Minister Tobias Hans (CDU) leaves the polling station together with his wife Tanja.

(Photo: dpa)

In Saarland, however, the SPD benefited not only from Hans’s weakness, but also from that of the other parties in the left-wing political camp. Due to internal disputes in the previous year, the Saar Greens did not manage to put together a state list in the federal elections and are considered a divided chaos troupe.

The Saarland Left only attracted attention recently through internal power struggles, because of which party founder Oskar Lafontaine left the party. Without the “King of the Saar”, the left was no longer eligible for many Saarlanders and was thrown out of the state parliament.

During the election campaign, Rehlinger had clearly ruled out an alliance with the Left Party and instead indicated “great sympathy” for a grand coalition – this time only under their leadership. She kept a low profile on other possible coalitions.

>>Read here: All developments on the Saarland election in the news blog

As Prime Minister, Rehlinger promised to create 400,000 jobs subject to social security contributions, to double the share of renewable energies in electricity consumption to at least 40 percent by the end of 2030 and to create free daycare places.

Even if the polls in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia look much better for the CDU, elections in the small Saarland have often had a national impact. In 2017, the more lost election was the beginning of the end of the high-altitude flight of the SPD chancellor candidate at the time, Martin Schulz.

A few weeks later, SPD Prime Minister Hannelore Kraft lost North Rhine-Westphalia to the CDU. Kraft was the last incumbent to lose a state election since then. Until this Sunday in Saarland.

More: The Saarland election will be the first mood test for Friedrich Merz

source site-15