Germany & Luxembourg

There were three elections in Europe on Sunday, one national and two state, but the national one was much the smallest of the three.

Two large German states, Bavaria and Hesse, voted for their state parliaments. Both were good results for the far-right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), which after a few lean years is now enjoying a boom in support [link added] – although its effect is felt less in its own chance of forcing its way into power and more in the way other parties (especially the centre-right) are adopting its agenda.

The Bavarian government, which is a coalition of the centre-right Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Free Voters (regionalist-centrists, but recently leaning further right), has been comfortably re-elected; the CSU retained its 85 seats unchanged, while the Free Voters picked up another ten, going to 37 and becoming the second-largest party with 15.8% of the vote. (See official results here.) But AfD is close behind: its vote jumped to 14.6% (up 4.4%) and [it] also picked up ten seats, taking it to 32.

The three parties that make up the governing coalition at federal level all lost badly, dropping 6.6% between them to a total of just 25.8%. The Greens lost six of their 38 seats, the Social Democrats (SPD) five of their 22, and the Liberals (FDP) fell below the threshold to 3.0%, thus losing all of their 11 seats.

But Bavaria has always been conservative territory. From the federal government’s point of view the result in Hesse, even though it’s not as big, was more worrying. There, the outgoing government was a coalition of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Greens, which went into the election with a one-seat majority (see my report on the 2018 election here).

They’ve increased that majority, but the balance between them has shifted significantly: the CDU with 34.6% of the vote (up 7.6%) and 52 seats (up 12) now has more than double the strength of the Greens, who dropped to 14.8% (down 5.0%) and 22 seats (down seven). (Official results here.) As in Bavaria, the SPD and FDP were also well down, losing 7.2% and nine seats between them; the FDP just scraped back with 5.0%, less than a thousand votes clear of the threshold.

Whereas last time the Greens and SPD were in a virtual dead-heat for second place, this time both fell below AfD, which surged to 18.4% (up 5.3%) and 28 seats (up nine) – its best-ever state result in the western half of the country. Polls now show it in a clear second place at national level as well, although with two years to go to the next federal election those results probably should be taken with a grain of salt.

Finally to Luxembourg, which has fewer people than even the smallest German state but is an independent grand duchy. You can read my preview of its election here; the three-party coalition government of liberals, social democrats and Greens was seeking a third term in office. It’s failed to win it though, at least in its existing form.

Liberals and social democrats both did well, winning 14 (up two) and 11 (up one) seats respectively. (See official results here.) But the Greens – who after riding a wave of support across the continent for the last few years have now come down to earth – had a shocking day, dropping to just 8.6% of the vote (down 6.5%) and four seats (down five). That leaves the government in a minority, with 29 of the 60 seats.

The far right did well, although less dramatically than in Germany (and it’s also less extreme to start with): it supplanted the Greens in fourth place with 9.3% (up 1.0%) and five seats (up one). In first place, as always, was the centre-right Christian Social People’s Party (CSV), with 29.2% (up 0.9%) and steady on 21 seats.

There are two routes to a majority government. One is for the CSV to win over either the liberals or the social democrats; the other is for the existing coalition to take in the Pirate Party, which won 6.7% of the vote (up 0.3%) and three seats (up one). Media reports suggest the first is the more likely, although they’ve been wrong about that before.

UPDATE Wednesday: The CSV and the liberals have now announced that they will hold talks with a view to forming a coalition, with CSV leader Luc Frieden as prime minister, although they are expected to take some time.