Martin Hagen did not want to comment on Monday whether he would draw conclusions himself. The top candidate and state chairman of the FDP in Bavaria traveled to Berlin early in the morning after what was a disappointing election evening for him. When he appeared in front of the press shortly before twelve in a jacket and an open white shirt together with FDP leader Christian Linder, Hagen still seemed quite put together again.
“Yesterday was a black day for the FDP,” he said and then reeled off a text similar to the previous evening. The result is bitter, given a committed election campaign and good work in parliament. The FDP did not break through and was unable to break away from the national trend. A few percentage points down cannot be buffered in Bavaria, where the victory in 2018 was only a very thin one. At that time, the FDP won 5.1 percent.
The FDP has been fluctuating between three and four percent in surveys for weeks. In the end there were only three, also because voters who didn’t want to give away their vote to a hopeless party turned away. Hagen said he took responsibility for the defeat. How things should proceed will be discussed in the state committees in Bavaria.