It shouldn’t be a nice Sunday for Friedrich Merz (66)!
The CDU leader and secret shadow chancellor is threatened with his first defeat in the state elections in Saarland on Sunday. Because: In the last polls, Merz’ CDU is well behind the SPD (39 percent) with 31 percent (INSA).
︎ Greens and FDP have to worry about moving back in, the left is definitely out (AfD: 6 percent). With a little luck, CDU Prime Minister Tobias Hans (44) could continue to govern as a junior partner in a GroKo of SPD candidate Anke Rehlinger (45).
In Merz’s Berlin CDU headquarters, according to BILD information, people are already distancing themselves from Hans and the CDU Saar: no issues, hardly any mobilization in the election campaign, bad organization.Message: Not Merz, but Hans screwed it up himself.
SPD candidate Anke Rehlinger (45)Photo: Andrew Arnold
Change of power possible
Shortly before the state elections, the Saar-SPD leads by a large margin ahead of the CDU under Prime Minister Tobias Hans – a change of power is in the air.
According to the current ZDF political barometer, the Social Democrats can extend their lead by two points to 41 percent compared to the previous week. The CDU, on the other hand, loses two points and comes to 28 percent.
The left remains at four percent and would thus fail at the five percent hurdle for entry into the state parliament. The AfD gains half a percent and rises to 6.5 percent, the Greens lose half a point to 5.5 percent and the FDP remains unchanged at five percent.
In the last state election in 2017, the CDU got 40.7 percent, the SPD 29.6 percent, the left 12.8 percent, the AfD 6.2 percent, the Greens 4.0 percent and the FDP 3 .3 percent.
Saarland has been firmly in the hands of the CDU for almost 23 years:
First Prime Minister Peter Müller was at the helm, followed by Prime Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer from 2011 and since March 2018 his successor Tobias Hans has been in charge. On March 27th the cards will be reshuffled.