A sigh of relief in the FDP leadership: In the member survey, a majority voted to remain in the coalition with the SPD and the Greens. 52.24 percent of voters advocated continuing government work, 47.76 percent wanted to end the coalition, as the dpa press agency learned from party circles. According to the information, only 26,058 of the approximately 72,100 FDP members took part in the survey.
The member vote has no practical consequences. The statutes say: “The party’s organs are not bound in their decision-making to the results of the member survey.” However, the result is considered an important mood picture. If there had been a majority in favor of leaving the traffic lights, this would have fueled the discussion within the party and put the party leadership under pressure. The relatively low interest of the FDP base in the question asked – participation in the survey of around 36 percent – and the result now also strengthen the party chairman Christian Lindner.
Open letter as a trigger
The FDP federal executive board started the survey on December 18th after 598 members requested it. Members were able to participate online for two weeks. According to the statutes of the FDP, a survey must be carried out if 500 members request it.
The initiative for the member vote followed an open letter from 26 state and local politicians from the FDP. After the poor election results in Hesse and Bavaria, they demanded that the FDP should reconsider its coalition partners. In Bavaria, the FDP missed entry into the state parliament last October. In Hesse it only barely made it over the five percent hurdle. The FDP had previously failed in five other state elections since joining the traffic light coalition: it also failed at the five percent hurdle in elections in Berlin, Lower Saxony and Saarland. In Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia she remained in the state parliament, but was kicked out of the government.
The year 2024 is also likely to be difficult for the FDP. The polls for the three state elections in September in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg put the Liberals at three to five percent. However, they are already several weeks old. In Saxony and Brandenburg, the FDP does not yet sit in the state parliament. There are no national polls yet for the European elections in June – in 2019 the FDP got 5.4 percent.
FDP leader Lindner was extremely calm about the members’ vote. It doesn’t stress him out, he said. “Because it is an opportunity to make it clear that the FDP is helping to shape the direction of the government.”