Korbinian Rüger, Florian Schardt and Ramona Greiner are in the front row at Paulaner am Nockherberg. At 6 p.m. on the dot, when the election forecasts of the television stations are on the screen, the top people of the district SPD, amid other party members, tear their arms up and scream their joy. Rüger, the direct candidate, district party leader Schardt and campaign manager Greiner feel like the clear winner at this moment. “The SPD is back,” say Rüger and Schardt shortly after this emotional moment for them.
Seldom do you see Social Democrats cheering like this: Florian Schardt, Korbinian Rüger and Ramona Greiner (from left) on Munich’s Nockherberg.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
The SPD won the federal election, but the CSU remains clearly the strongest force in the Munich district. Her Bundestag member Florian Hahn wins the direct mandate a fourth time, albeit with losses, and, as in 2017, does significantly better than his party with his personal result: 39.0 percent to 32.3 percent. The Greens are just ahead of the SPD in both the second and first votes: Green parliamentary group leader Anton Hofreiter comes to 20.4 percent (plus 8.7 percent), his party to 18.8 percent. With 15.3 percent, SPD candidate Rüger is almost the same as Bela Bach, the SPD candidate from 2017 (16.3 percent). In the second vote, the SPD increased from 14.0 to 17.3 percent and came third.
Reason for joy: Markus Büchler, member of the state parliament, with party friends in the Muffathalle.
(Photo: Catherina Hess)
Nevertheless, Rüger cheers like a winner in view of the success of his party in the federal government. “You have to think about where we came from, how we started this election campaign in May,” says the 32-year-old Planegger. “Olaf Scholz was already a candidate for Chancellor and was laughed at, I was also laughed at at the information booths.” But in the past few weeks he has noticed that something has started to move: “The mood that I experienced during the election campaign is also reflected in our results. Now the Chancellery is within reach.” Schardt is “just happy,” as he says. “Korbinian did a fantastic job, the whole team did a fantastic job,” says the SPD district chairman, who admits that he felt insecure before election day. “I had a bit of a piss that this new red sock campaign got caught and the people in the voting booth changed their minds.” Rüger is satisfied with his first vote result. The election campaign began with a “cold start” after Bela Bach’s withdrawal. “A short time ago nobody knew my name.”
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A winner was already determined on Sunday before the counting: Green parliamentary group leader Anton Hofreiter from Unterhaching was secured in second place on the state list of his party. Despite the strong gains in votes, his party friends in the Muffathalle in Munich are a little restrained. One hopes for even more. “It is definitely the best result we have ever had,” says Markus Büchler, the member of the state parliament from Oberschleissheim. A little later, Hofreiter made a very similar statement in a phone call from Berlin: “It’s the best we’ve ever achieved, now we have to make the best of it and negotiate our issues on an equal footing.” Hofreiter refers to climate protection and social cohesion. Büchler also underlines once again the positive result of the Greens. He has been in the party for 30 years, and at that time no one dared to dream of such numbers. “That is a tailwind for us and our issues.” He therefore sees the result with one laughing and one crying eye.
Yes, they wished for more, that also admits Green District Chairman Volker Leib after the first projections, which flicker across the big screen shortly after 6 p.m. “That’s the bottom end of what we were hoping for,” he says. Christoph Nadler, the parliamentary group leader in Kreistag, also donates rather reserved applause. It becomes clear: these are not the numbers that the Greens were flirting with. Nevertheless, you don’t want to spoil your mood with lentils with pumpkin and sweet potatoes.
First of all, Leib, his co-chairmen Sabine Pilsinger and Nadler hope that the green bar will go up in the course of the evening. He doesn’t do that after all. Nevertheless, Büchler sees his party still on the way up. “We have gained so much approval and many new members in the past few weeks, all over Upper Bavaria,” he says, and is therefore looking to the future with optimism.
The own candidate in the Munich-Land constituency has also grown significantly. But in the end Anton Hofreiter is too far removed from the direct mandate. “Eight years ago the CSU was still over 50 percent. So I can be satisfied,” says Hofreiter. In his own words, Leib also did not expect her prominent candidate CSU man to overtake Florian Hahn. “Not this time,” says Leib and shows a graph on which the curves of green and black have been converging for several elections. A “landslide victory” was not to be expected. But in four years the curves could cross.