Post by Phyllis Berry

Baden-Württemberg (BW) Election Implications Sunday's election results confirmed the personalization of state-level elections; despite the CDU being seen as most competent party in almost all key issues, the advantage in popularity and name recognition Cem Özdemir enjoyed vis a vis the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) candidate Manuel Hager allowed the Greens to eke out a 30.2 to 29.7 percent first place showing. The two parties won an equal number of parliamentary seats, however, which reflects the important difference between parliamentary and presidential systems. The CDU is calling for dividing the minister-presidency between the two parties, each for half a term, a demand SPD is rejecting. As in the federal government, the Baden-Wurttemberg constitution stipulates that once a minister-president is elected, he can only be removed before the end of a term by electing his successor by an absolute majority. National politics played a minor role at best in the election, but the results remain a disappointment for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU and a disaster for his coalition partner Social Democratic Party, which suffered its worst result ever in the state with 5.5 percent of the vote. The results raise the stakes for the SPD in the 22 March Rheinland-Pfalz election, where SPD Minister-President Alexander Schweitzer is seeking to retain his post. The right extreme AfD will be the lead opposition party in the BW parliament, having won 18.8 percent of the vote. This is double its 2021 result and more than 3-percentage points above its 2016 results. The AfD is still mostly a protest party in this state; in a Forschungsgruppe Wahlen exit poll, 62 percent of its supporters said they voted for the party to send a message while 32 percent supported the party’s positions. The new state parliament will likely convene on 12 May. There is no precedent of dividing up the minister-presidency and tradition as well as the public’s clear preference for Özdemir suggests the CDU will eventually concede on this issue. Coalition negotiations are likely to be difficult, however, and the CDU will no doubt demand major policy concessions and an equal number of ministerial appointments to enter a coalition.