State elections in Lower Saxony: What do the Greens, FDP and AfD want?

The political goals of the Greens, FDP and AfD in Lower Saxony could hardly be more different. What do the parties stand for and who actually stands up for them?

Strategist, not a sprinter: Julia Willie Hamburg, Greens

Julia Willie Hamburg has decided against running for the State Chancellery. The party of the 36-year-old Hanoverian has meanwhile reached more than 20 percentage points in polls. But Julia Willie Hamburg is considered a long-distance runner, not a sprinter. Party members describe her as a clever thinker who thinks things over carefully, weighs up moments precisely – but sometimes she just doesn’t make enough noise about her own person.

This is noticeable: Although the Greens in Lower Saxony have grown – in the 2017 state election they only got 8.7 percent – many people do not know the top candidate Hamburg. This is probably also due to the fact that she did not have an easy start in her role as a top politician.

When she took over the parliamentary group chairmanship in March 2020, the pandemic was just beginning. Instead of traveling all over the country, political debates are shifted to the home office. But Hamburg fights its way free: the education politician quickly becomes the strong voice of the opposition. “Our job is to put our finger on the wound,” she says.

But Hamburg is also a strategist, she has had a precise plan for a long time as to how the Greens should become part of the government. “I would very much like to be able to have a say. It’s sometimes very frustrating to just sit there and know that things would be done differently,” the Green Party made clear a year ago. In the meantime, the Greens only get 16 percent in polls. She may be right in her assessment that the fight for the state chancellery is premature, but she is certainly patiently waiting for the right moment.

Often sober, mostly critical: Stefan Birkner, FDP

Stefan Birkner is calm and calm. Even when he says these days that the election campaign is getting on his nerves. That’s how the FDP politician is, always factual, often sober – mostly critical.

In the past five years, this was especially true of his handling of the course of the black-red state government. Of course, as an opposition faction, a critical look is important. But the 49-year-old lawyer is often concerned with GroKo’s understanding of the law.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the FDP, together with the Greens, sued the state government for communication. The Supreme Court agrees with them. Birkner continues to put his finger in the wound, criticizing many rules that are ultimately overturned by the administrative court in Lüneburg.

But not only the Corona policy gets a devastating verdict from the FDP politician – he describes the entire five years of red-black state government as “standstill”. Birkner therefore wants to be part of the future state government. Although the intersections with the CDU are still the greatest, he also knows that a traffic light coalition in Lower Saxony is probably the most likely option for implementing this project.

He wants to bring the FDP into a role, “to find a place in modernization, in reason and in determination and ambition”. It shouldn’t just be about green ideology, says the brother-in-law of Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) during the election campaign. At the same time, it was he who has strengthened relations with the Greens since the last state election.

However, the entry of the Liberals is on the brink: According to the latest survey by Infratest dimap for the NDR the FDP comes to just five percent. For the liberals, entering the state parliament could remain a nail-biter until the end.

A moderate who can dish out: Stefan Marzischewski-Drewes, AfD

Stefan Marzischewski-Drewes is probably not that well known for many people in Lower Saxony – because the AfD politician was relatively surprisingly the top candidate for the state elections. In the election campaign, he must therefore market himself more than the top candidates of the other parties.

The 57-year-old radiologist from Gifhorn is considered moderate. He is down-to-earth and sorted. This sets him apart from many Lower Saxony party members. Their impulsiveness brought turbulent times to the AfD – dissolution of the faction, smashing of the party leadership. But Marzischewski-Drewes can also dish out – in internal meetings he shoots at times massively against his political opponents, it is said. But when it comes to personal contact with people, he is calm: “Nobody takes a dog that just keeps barking seriously.”

Marzischewski-Drewes doesn’t have it easy in the election campaign. Although it also meets with approval, if it is rejected, it is all the more obvious. The belief that Nazis are represented among AfD members is widespread. The top candidate cannot really deny that. “You’re asking me to exclude something that I can’t do,” he says when asked if he knows of members who are close to the right-wing extremist scene.

The AfD Lower Saxony is observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution because of contacts and connections to right-wing extremist organizations. Marzischewski-Drewes sees no reason for this. He is convinced that it is “an abuse of state organization”.