Schleswig-Holstein: What you need to know about the election in the north

Schleswig-Holstein has experienced more exciting election campaigns than now. The question of who is the strongest political force already seems clear. This state election is still exciting, which is mainly due to the Greens and the FDP.

Schleswig Holstein? There was something?

It’s been a long time since political scandals up north shook up the entire republic. “Barschel affair”, “drawer affair”, “Heide murderer”, “Lolita affair” – the older ones remember. Daniel Günther now governs the land between the seas with a steady hand and similarly calm coalition partners – the Greens and the FDP. It is currently the only state-level Jamaican coalition nationwide.

It wasn’t always that quiet in Schleswig-Holstein. In the past, the state has been the scene of political drama and human tragedy on several occasions. The news of Prime Minister Uwe Barschel’s death in a bathtub in a luxury hotel in Geneva in October 1987 shocked the whole of Germany and gave rise to speculation – to this day.

The “Barschel affair” was followed by the “drawer affair”, which in turn forced Barschel’s political opponent Björn Engholm to resign in 1993. In 2005, Engholm’s successor in the Kiel State Chancellery, Heide Simonis, fell over an anonymous dissenter from the ranks of her own coalition. The “Heide murderer” has not revealed himself to this day. So there’s plenty of room for speculation here, too.

In 2011 it was again the CDU that made the headlines: the “Lolita Affair” brought down the top candidate Christian von Boetticher. It had previously become known that the CDU man had a love affair with a 16-year-old. Nine months before the election date, the CDU quickly had to look for a new number 1. In the state elections in May 2012, it emerged as the strongest force by a hair’s breadth, but lost power on the fjord. The SPD moved back into the State Chancellery. Political change seemed to be becoming the norm in the country.

Daniel who?

In 2017, the CDU surprisingly appeared in Schleswig-Holstein with the largely unknown Daniel Günther. At that time, the North CDU quickly needed a replacement after the top candidate, Ingbert Liebing, had resigned a good six months before the state elections. Günther came, started catching up and actually won – even five percentage points ahead of the governing SPD and Prime Minister Torsten Albig.

Its “coastal coalition” (SPD, Greens and SSW) was voted out after almost five years. A triumph for the CDU. Since then, Günther has governed together with the Greens and the FDP. “Daniel, who?” Nobody asks anymore. Günther is well-known and popular, according to polls he is heading towards an unchallenged election victory.

This time it is the SPD candidate who hardly anyone knows: the fact that the Social Democrats did not run with country chief Serpil Midyatli, but with the little-known Thomas Losse-Müller, amazed many, especially since Losse-Müller was still a Green party until 2020.

SSWho?

The SSW is now known nationwide, also because it is so special. And because he – although a small party – has been represented in parliament in Kiel for decades and sometimes even co-governed. The Südschleswigscher Wahlerverband (SSW) is primarily anchored in the northern parts of the country near the border with Denmark, where it sometimes achieves more than 20 percent of the votes in local elections. For the first time in decades, the SSW has also had a representative in the Bundestag since last year.

As a party of the Danish minority, the SSW is exempt from the five percent clause. However, he needs at least as many votes as are necessary for the allocation of the last mandate. On this basis, the party, which also represents the Frisian minority, has been in the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament since 1958, but for a long time only with one member. From 2012 to 2017, the SSW formed a government with the SPD and the Greens, the “coastal coalition”. With Anke Spoorendonk, the SSW provided the Minister of Justice. In this election, the party is led by Lars Harms, who also helped forge the alliance in 2012. It is quite possible that the SSW will be needed again for a coalition.

What is the starting position?

With 2.3 million eligible voters, more people are called to vote than a few weeks ago in Saarland – but significantly less than a week later in North Rhine-Westphalia. The strongest force in 2017 was the CDU with 32.0 percent, followed by the SPD, Greens, FDP, AfD and SSW. The Left Party did not make it into parliament. The initially five-member AfD parliamentary group disintegrated, the former state chairman Doris von Sayn-Wittgenstein was temporarily excluded from the party because of alleged contacts with right-wing extremists.

CDU election winner Günther formed a coalition with the Greens and the FDP, which has governed stably ever since. In Kiel, what is known to have failed in Berlin worked out. Some protagonists were present at the negotiations on the Förde as well as on the Spree: Robert Habeck and Wolfgang Kubicki, for example. The Greens and the FDP man are now part of the traffic light alliance at the federal level.

Monika Heinold is someone who has been with us in the North for a long time and has changed political partners. She has been Finance Minister for ten years, first in the cabinet of SPD Prime Minister Albig, then in Günther’s cabinet. Now she wants to go into the state chancellery herself. At the moment it doesn’t look like she’s going to get past Günther. From the point of view of many Schleswig-Holsteiners, the once unknown CDU politician has done his job pretty well and is also leading them GermanyTrend– Ranking of the most popular Prime Ministers. If things go really well for him and his CDU this Sunday, then he can even do without one of his two previous partners in his next government.

Which issues were important in the election campaign?

The war in Ukraine, at least indirectly, determines the issues of the election campaign. The increased energy and fuel prices are also driving the debate on the expansion of renewable energies. The north is naturally particularly heavily influenced by wind power. The CDU and FDP are calling for more oil production in the Wadden Sea in order to reduce dependence on imports from Russia.

The construction of an LNG terminal for liquefied natural gas in Brunsbüttel is controversial: Federal Minister of Economics Habeck and the leading North Greens support it – but a state party conference rejected it. In agricultural policy there are differences between the CDU/FDP and the Greens.

The CDU and FDP, with reference to the security of supply in the Ukraine war, refuse to take agricultural land out of production according to EU specifications. The Greens, on the other hand, are insisting on restructuring and citing climate change and species extinction.

Who could win?

The matter actually seems relatively clear: most polls indicate a clear victory for the CDU. In the published just over a week ago ARD-Pre-election survey on the political mood in the country, the CDU was 38 percent – and thus quite far ahead of the challengers. The SPD came in the Sunday question as the second strongest party with 19 percent and was thus well behind its 2017 election result – at that time the SPD reached 27.3 percent. The Greens would get 16 percent, the FDP would get nine percent. AfD and SSW would be around the five percent hurdle. However: This is not a forecast of the outcome of the election, but the numbers only reflect the political mood in the country ten days before the election.

And then?

At least at the top of the government, everything could stay as it is. According to the polls, Günther could remain prime minister and the CDU the strongest force in the governing coalition. But who would the Christian Democrats look for as a partner in this case?

A two-party alliance may be enough for them this time. In purely mathematical terms, according to the most recent survey, an alliance between the CDU and the Greens could be possible – and the FDP would no longer be necessary. A coalition of the CDU with the FDP could possibly bring the necessary majority – possibly with the SSW.

A coalition of CDU and SPD would be politically unlikely, but just as unlikely. According to the polls, however, an SPD government would only be possible if the SPD, as the second strongest force, were to form a coalition with the Greens, FDP and SSW. There is no majority in sight for a coalition of SPD, Greens and SSW.

How does Berlin look at the fjord?

An honest answer would probably be: at most with half an eye. After all, a week later in Düsseldorf there is much more at stake, which can also be seen from the number of campaign appearances by top federal political personnel deep in the West. Nevertheless, the election in Schleswig-Holstein is of course not entirely unimportant from a federal political point of view. If Günther really gets a brilliant election result for the CDU, this would probably lift the spirits in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus significantly – after the loss of power in Saarland. Ironically, Günther – never a fan of Friedrich Merz – would then give the new CDU leader the much-needed sense of achievement and boost, which at best extends to North Rhine-Westphalia.

And the Chancellor’s Party? The defeat in Kiel should already be priced into the Willy-Brandt-Haus, and all eyes have long been directed to the west: in North Rhine-Westphalia, where it was once home, an SPD victory is at least within the realm of possibility. With the looming historical election debacle in Schleswig-Holstein, you probably don’t want to linger long.

For the Greens and FDP, the most exciting question after the election is whether they will continue to govern. Günther confirmed to the end that he would like to continue in the Jamaica alliance. But should the CDU be able to govern in a coalition of two with the Greens or the FDP, Günther would have a choice.

The Left Party currently has completely different problems at the federal level than dealing with another disastrous election result in one federal state. Most recently, the party was able to enter the Kiel state parliament in 2009. The situation at the AfD is similar. Here, too, the party does not come to rest at the federal level, but if the North AfD is thrown out of the state parliament, this will hardly do anything to calm the situation.