The CDU is struggling in northern Germany, while the SPD governs in Lower Saxony, Bremen, Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. However, Schleswig-Holstein experienced an amazing turnaround four years ago: The former opposition leader Daniel Günther, then an outsider, won. He even managed to ally his union with the Greens and the FDP, and the Greens were very flexible. The so-called coastal coalition of SPD, Greens and the Danish-Frisian minority SSW was replaced by Jamaica. And now?
Four years later, Daniel Günther is the most popular politician in the federal state between the seas and has the best chance of remaining prime minister even after the state elections on May 8th. He is one of the most popular heads of government in Germany. According to surveys, three quarters of voters are satisfied with his black, green and yellow experiment. Günther could give the CDU federal chairman Friedrich Merz a pleasant evening after the disaster in Saarland. This is also remarkable in that the Jamaican Chancellor Angela Merkel and her style were much closer than her adversary Merz.
The inconspicuous conservative Günther made a remarkable change
Günther adapted, the formerly pale conservative became a smart mediator, a remarkable transformation. Despite some differences of opinion, he brought Greens and Liberals together, which at the time failed painfully in the federal government. The search for compromises in Kiel is complicated to tiring, but the trio doesn’t get along badly. In any case, you know each other in the manageable political landscape on the North Sea and Baltic Sea, which makes such maneuvers easier. The big duels seem to be over on the fjord for now.
The alpha animals Ralf Stegner, Wolfgang Kubicki and Robert Habeck have moved into the Bundestag or the federal government. Schleswig-Holstein’s Jamaica is a counter-model to the traffic lights of Hamburg SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz. However, the days of the Nordic trinity could still be numbered.
It looks like it will even be enough for black and green this time, without the FDP. Very theoretically possible and much less likely is a traffic light, i.e. with FDP and without CDU, led by SPD candidate Thomas Losse-Müller or Green woman Monika Heinold, depending on the result. Then the presumed election winner Günther would end up the loser, but that’s just a numbers game. In any case, the Greens will probably be even more important than before.
A new togetherness requires the ability to compromise
As finance minister, your top candidate Heinold is familiar with alliances with the CDU and SPD. She recently preferred the CDU because it was less dominant. And if the FDP were no longer needed, the Greens would find it easier. But both of them would have to get involved in such a togetherness: Günther’s CDU had braked especially when building more wind turbines, and Schleswig-Holstein’s Greens were against LNG terminals, at least until recently.
Mobility, energy, environment, school, daycare, housing, wages. These are topics in the election campaign, and in the course of the Russian attack on Ukraine there is also the debate about war, weapons and refugees, about fuel prices and gas supply. The windy coasts play an important role in the alternatives of wind power, liquid natural gas and hydrogen. In the case of black-green, Prime Minister Günther would have to take climate change and the turnaround in traffic more into account than distance rules and Friedrich Merz.