German voters give government parties a drubbing in state elections

Voters in two German states used a pair of regional elections on Sunday to give the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition a painful drubbing, with results showing the German electorate shifting markedly to the right.

The centre-right opposition won both elections — in the central state of Hesse and the southern region of Bavaria — but the day’s other big winner was the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) whose support has surged in recent weeks on a wave of anger over rising refugee numbers.

The AfD won 14.6 per cent in Bavaria and 18.4 per cent in Hesse, its best-ever result in a west German state. Long a significant presence in the former communist East, it is now becoming a truly national force.

“Our record results show our policies are right,” said Alice Weidel, co-chair of the party. The AfD was, she said, “ready for more”.

“The results for the AfD are really alarming,” said Omid Nouripour, national co-leader of the Greens, “and we have to do everything we can to regain people’s trust.”

The outcome in Hesse and Bavaria underscored widespread popular disenchantment with Scholz’s government, a highly fractious alliance of Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and liberal Free Democrats (FDP) that is unprecedented in postwar German history.

Migration, inflation, high energy costs and a lingering recession have weighed heavily on the mood of voters and turned them against the government parties. Much frustration has also been felt over the continual squabbling and internal rivalries between the coalition partners.

The main conservative opposition parties won both elections. The centre-right Christian Democratic Union garnered 34.6 per cent in Hesse, up 8 points on the last election in 2018, while its sister party the Christian Social Union won in Bavaria with 37 per cent.

The share of the vote for all three government parties shrank. But it was a particularly depressing night for Scholz’s SPD, which had hoped to regain power in Hesse after 25 years in opposition, and which fielded a heavyweight — interior minister Nancy Faeser — as its top candidate.

Its share shrank to just 15.1 per cent, putting it third behind the CDU and the AfD, while in Bavaria it was knocked into fifth place, garnering just 8.4 per cent. It was its worst-ever electoral performance in either state.

“We’re not deaf and blind,” said Kevin Kühnert, the SPD secretary-general. “There is a message for us, too, in this election result.”

The small liberal Free Democrats, the third member of Scholz’s coalition, fared even worse. They won just 2.9 per cent in Bavaria, below the necessary threshold to enter the regional parliament, and only 5 per cent in Hesse.

The Greens’ share also fell in both states, to 14.4 in Bavaria and 14.8 per cent in Hesse, though their losses were not as great as the SPD’s and FDP’s.

But the mood in the CDU was euphoric. “It’s an unbelievably awesome day for the CDU in Hesse,” said the state’s prime minister Boris Rhein, who leads the Christian Democrats in the state.

The results suggest that the current governments in both Hesse and Bavaria can continue in their present form: Hesse is run by a CDU-Green coalition, Bavaria by a tie-up between the CSU and the conservative Freie Wähler, or Free Voters, which garnered 15.8 per cent on Sunday — its best result in the state.

“Bavaria chose stability and the CSU has clearly won this election,” said Markus Söder, Bavaria’s prime minister and CSU leader.

But the CSU’s result represented the latest stage in a steady slide in popularity for a party that once monopolised Bavarian politics. Nearly a third of the vote went to two parties to the right of the CSU: the AfD and Free Voters.