analysis
As of: 03/27/2022 6:20 p.m
After more than two decades, the SPD is again the strongest force in Saarland – thanks to top candidate Rehlinger. She showed a good feeling for the issues in the country. The defeat of the CDU is homemade.
When things start to slip, there comes a point when there’s no stopping them. The longer the election campaign lasted, the better SPD candidate Anke Rehlinger presented herself, and the paler the incumbent Prime Minister Tobias Hans looked.
The SPD in Saarland has achieved what the party has had to wait for a long time nationwide: for the first time since 2017 there is a change of color at the head of a federal state, the SPD replaces the CDU – and Olaf Scholz recently had a result of over 40 percent in the state election Achieved for the SPD in 2015.
Rehlinger has addressed regional concerns well
The analysis of our survey data shows that this is a personal and thoroughly political success. The war in Ukraine or other federal political debates do not play a significant role in the decision-making process.
The most important topic, especially for SPD voters, were jobs in Saarland. This is also understandable, because growth in Saarland lags far behind all other federal states and there is great concern about the existing jobs, especially in the automotive and steel industries.
Anke Rehlinger was the best at addressing these concerns. The result is their own personal success. In our election day survey, half of the SPD voters stated that the top candidate was decisive for the voting decision. This is particularly evident in the group of newly won voters. The candidate factor is even stronger than it was for Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer five years ago.
Sole government is possible
We won’t know until the evening of the election whether Rehlinger will have to look for a coalition partner. On the one hand, entry into the state parliament is anything but certain for the FDP. If it falls below the five percent hurdle, the course would be set for a sole SPD government.
But even in a parliament with three small parties – AfD, Greens and FDP – the SPD could ultimately do it alone because of the special electoral law in Saarland. Because the distribution of mandates is based on the so-called maximum number system according to d’Hondt. This form of counting, which used to be widespread in the Federal Republic but has now been abolished in most countries, favors the largest party and, in extreme cases, can increase its voting weight by around two percentage points.
CDU and Greens decoupled from the national trend
The result for the Saar-CDU is bitter. Because this defeat is homemade and has a lot to do with Prime Minister Tobias Hans and his much-criticized lurching course in the corona pandemic. While the Union at federal level under the new CDU chairman Friedrich Merz has experienced a slight upswing in polls since the beginning of the year and is also gaining momentum in Schleswig-Holstein, where elections will also be held in May, the Saar-CDU curve is pointing steeply downwards. It could be the second-worst CDU result in state history.
The Greens in Saarland are also completely detached from the national trend. The inner-party quarrels continue to have an effect, the top candidate is hardly known. The party has barely made an appearance outside of parliament in recent years. While Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock are currently the two most popular cabinet members at federal level, the green tailwind is completely overtaking Saarland.
Other CDU state leaders are up for election
Rarely in recent years has the result of a state election been so entirely regional and independent of national political sentiment. But that doesn’t change the fact that regional election results can also set trends.
There will be two more elections this spring, in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia. Both times it is about incumbent CDU prime ministers. They will certainly analyze the defeat in the Saar very carefully in the next few days.