The CDU loses strongly and comes to about 11 percent. Both the AfD and the FDP still have to worry about entering parliament.
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The government parties SPD and Greens emerged as clear winners from the elections for Hamburg’s citizenship on Sunday. The incumbent Peter Tschentscher (SPD) broke away from the negative federal trend of his party. Despite losses compared to 2015 (45.6 percent), the SPD is again the strongest force according to the projection at 39.0 percent. The Greens more than doubled their result. With their top candidate Katharina Fegebank, they achieved around 24 percent – their best result so far in the city-state. Fegebank, the current science senator in the Hanseatic city, also wanted Tschentscher to contest the mayor’s office, but she failed to achieve this goal. The Left Party stagnates at 9.1 percent.
On the evening of the election, Tschentscher indicated that he wanted to continue to coalition with the Greens. With 82 out of 121 seats, they would have a comfortable majority in the citizenship. However, the strengthened Greens are likely to place significantly higher demands on coalition talks than in 2015.
The leading candidate of the Greens, Katharina Fegebank, and the incumbent and leading candidate of the SPD, Peter Tschentscher.
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Another debacle for the CDU
For the CDU, however, the only state election this year was a debacle. Likewise for the FDP and AfD, who have to worry about returning to the citizens. The CDU fell to its nationwide worst result in state elections in almost seventy years. According to projections, it only comes to just under 11 percent – minus 4.7 percentage points compared to the already bad result of 2015. The FDP was 5 percent, it is still unclear whether it will overcome the 5 percent hurdle. In addition, the AfD could miss the re-entry into a state parliament for the first time. They saw projections at 5.3 percent on Sunday evening. In the past elections to the right, the right-wing populists had first entered a West German state parliament at 6.1 percent.
A turbulent election campaign lies behind the parties. The Elections in Thuringia, in which the FDP man Thomas Kemmerich was elected Prime Minister with the votes of the CDU and AfD, and the subsequent leadership crisis of the CDU partially overlaid the Hamburg issues. The SPD, CDU and FDP in particular tried to disconnect themselves from the national trend of their parties. Tschentscher kept the SPD leadership duo Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans completely out of the election campaign, referring to the SPD’s “own course” in Hamburg. The Social Democrats are traditionally strong in the Hanseatic city. The SPD in the federal government will therefore hardly be able to record the good result for itself.
Unlike Tschentscher, top CDU candidate Marcus Weinberg was unable to free himself from his party’s crisis. The Directional dispute after the announced withdrawal the CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and the behavior of the state party in Thuringia left clear traces in the election results of the Christian Democrats. On Sunday evening, CDU General Secretary Paul Ziemiak admitted the disaster: “What happened in Thuringia and all discussions related to Thuringia were anything but tailwind for the CDU campaigners in Hamburg.”
FDP chief Lindner: “voters rightly irritated”
The Liberals also practiced self-criticism. The FDP leader Christian Lindner saw the bad election result of his party as a sign of the loss of confidence after the turmoil in Thuringia. The election of Kemmerich, supported by the AfD, as the Thuringian prime minister had put the election campaigners in Hamburg in a “very difficult situation”. The voters were “rightly irritated,” he conceded.
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