Gülseren Demirel was the first direct candidate from the Munich Greens to venture onto the stage of the Muffathalle on Sunday evening. It was shortly after 8 p.m., the first results from the Munich voting districts had just been made public, and they showed a huge lead for Demirel. At this point in time, she was around ten percentage points ahead of her CSU challenger Andreas Lorenz in district 103 Munich-Giesing, with 34 percent of the votes counted up to that point. And although Demirel pointed out that it was still a long evening and that not every ballot paper had been counted in the result, she couldn’t help but feel relieved. “Wow,” said the 59-year-old and first thanked her team of helpers: “We rocked the election campaign together!”
The Munich Greens didn’t rock this year’s state election campaign as much as they did five years ago, but back then they were riding a wave of euphoria and sailed to the finish line as the big winners because they not only won the first direct mandate for their party in Bavaria, but immediately had conquered five of the nine Munich constituencies. This even encouraged their top man, Ludwig Hartmann, to stage dive, jumping from the stage into the audience, like at a rock concert. It wasn’t that exhilarating on Sunday evening, but as the evening progressed, many of the approximately 400 Green Party supporters in attendance danced increasingly exuberantly across the hall floor.
After a “strenuous election campaign” (Demirel), in which they were attacked from all possible sides, they had every reason to be happy, because they seemed to be able to defend at least four direct mandates: In addition to Demirel, the top candidate Katharina Schulze (Milbertshofen) was also in the lead. and Ludwig Hartmann (center) are clearly ahead of their respective CSU competitors, as is Christian Hierneis (Schwabing). Only Benjamin Adjei (Moosach) seemed to have to hand over his direct mandate to the CSU man Alexander Dietrich, the city’s former human resources officer. That wasn’t entirely unexpected: five years ago, Adjei won by just 63 votes.
While Hartmann at least admitted that he was confident about his direct mandate and thanked his voters for their trust, Schulze only wanted to comment once all of her constituency’s votes had actually been counted. In Hartmann’s case, there actually seemed to be no need for restraint – at this point he was at around 45 percent, so an absolute majority of the first votes in his constituency 109 Munich-Mitte was more likely than a defeat against the CSU candidate Susanne Hornberger. Adjei and his state parliament colleagues Florian Siekmann and Sanne Kurz must now hope to move into the next plenary session via the state list. It also depends on the second votes, with which they could be voted forward.
In Munich, the Greens did significantly better
Defending first place in the city was one of the goals of the Munich Greens. They may have succeeded in this too: While the results that came in gradually showed them to be consistently above the 30 percent mark for initial and overall votes, the CSU didn’t quite come close. Even if things aren’t going quite so well across Bavaria, “things are looking great in Munich,” city leader Svenja Jarchow announced later in the evening: “We’ve even gained more votes” – even in the constituencies that the Greens are unlikely to win become.
This is also thanks to the constituency candidates Julia Post (Pasing) and Fabian Sauer (Bogenhausen), who were not previously represented in the state parliament, and who came close to the CSU placeholders Josef Schmid and Robert Brannekämper. Shortly after the first forecasts, Post and Sauer raved about the strong support from the grassroots and all election workers. “The term ‘Team Bayern’ wasn’t just a phrase,” assured Sauer. He was “incredibly happy because I had such a great team.” Praise for the grassroots campaign workers continued throughout the evening. “It wasn’t wind blowing against us, just a storm,” Post summed up in view of an election campaign that Svenja Jarchow described as “underground” because of the amount of hostility.
Claudia Roth, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media, who came to Munich for the election party, also claps.
(Photo: Catherina Hess)
The relief of having withstood this was already noticeable after the first ARD forecast at 6 p.m., when the Greens were given 16 percent. Cheers and applause erupted. And the mood was also expressed in the choice of terms: the Green Party officials repeatedly emphasized that this election had proven that they were “firmly anchored in Bavaria”. “We are pleased that we are in such a stable position,” summarized Joel Keilhauer, co-head of the Green City Association.
After the work was done, Gülseren Demirel wasn’t the only one who took a deep breath. “It was really a very difficult election campaign, we had to fight our way through our issues,” she said. “Then getting people’s trust back is a good feeling.” This election campaign was stressful not because the Greens didn’t have the right issues, she added, but because their political opponents made life so difficult for them with their populist attacks. “It seems that content still plays a role in Giesing and that people won’t let themselves be dumbed down,” she said, at least for her constituency. Katharina Schulze also hinted at the required commitment in her thanks to the Green Party supporters: “You stuck posters, and then stuck them again. And stuck them again.”
Later, on the Muffathalle stage, Ludwig Hartmann outlined the tasks for the next legislative period: “Our role is clear: We have to do something to counteract the shift to the right in Bavaria.”