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| Europe |
| The traffic light went out. Elections in Bavaria show the mood of German voters |
| 2023-10-10 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Gregor Spitzen [REGNUM] The significance of the elections to the Bavarian Landtag (Parliament of Bavaria) in terms of their influence on all German domestic politics is difficult to overestimate. The way voters in Germany's richest and most economically developed region vote is an objective reflection of the sentiments of the bulk of the German electorate. Although the Bavarian elections certainly have their own peculiarities, the way other parties perform during the election campaign gives their political strategists a chance to draw the right conclusions and work on mistakes ahead of the elections to the Bundestag. The main feature of the Bavarian regional elections is the almost unshakable position of the CSU party, or Christian Social Union, the sister party of the federal political force - the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which, for its unshakable positions in the most important region for all of Germany, was allowed to increase its status as an equal partner in a single party that united almost all systemic German conservatives. The CSU consistently shows excellent results in Bavaria, receiving at least a third of all votes, but this is not enough to independently form a regional government. As a result, Christian Socialists have to block with other forces - for example, with the Free Voters Party, a political force of a liberal-conservative persuasion that has very limited popularity outside Bavaria. If the CSU and the Free Voters entered into a coalition with the Alternative for Germany party, which, if we put aside prejudices and rabid accusations of Nazism, is very close to them in ideology based on right-wing conservative values, such a union could lead the Bavarian government without looking back on other political organizations in the region. However, the picture of the preliminary election results last Sunday only adds to the intrigue ahead of the inevitable negotiations between the CSU and other parties to create a viable coalition. So, according to preliminary results, the CSU party receives 37% of the votes of Bavarian voters, only slightly worsening its previous result (-0.2%). Second place was taken by “Free Voters”, who received 15.8% (+4.2%), which is slightly higher than preliminary forecasts. “Alternative for Germany” is in third place with a result of 14.6%, also significantly improving its results (+4.4%), which, however, was still not enough for second place. In fourth position were the Greens with a result of 14.4%, a significant decline compared to the previous elections (-3.2%), and Chancellor Olaf Scholz's SPD party ended the campaign with the worst result in its regional history - 8.4% ( -1.3%). Prime Minister of Bavaria, leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU) Markus Söder and his wife Karin Baumüller-Söder, election observer Wolfram Gaebisch (from left to right) during voting in the elections to the Bavarian Landtag. The remaining political forces did not make it into the Landtag, showing results below the entry barrier and at the level of statistical error. Among them are the Free Democrats (FDP), which at the federal level form the ruling “traffic light” coalition with the Social Democrats and the Greens. In the context of the past term, the picture of the electoral preferences of the residents of Bavaria, drawn by German sociologists from the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen Institute in collaboration with the ZDF channel on the eve of the elections, is very interesting. The war in Ukraine, the recession in the German economy, the scandal with violence against the leaders of the Alternative for Germany, a difficult election campaign - all this may have caused voters to change their traditional choice this time. As in the 2018 elections, the CSU is still the dominant party in all age groups. However, the results between younger and older people differ significantly. According to the survey results, Markus Soeder's party received almost half of all votes among people over 60 years old (in this age group, the CSU and Free Voters together gain more than 60%), but among those aged 18 to 29, the popularity of the CSU is more than two times lower. “Alternative for Germany”, as in the state elections in 2018, receives the most votes of support among the most active category of citizens - those aged 30 to 44 years (19%). At the same time, support both among those who are younger and among those who are older is only slightly inferior. In second place in popularity among Bavarian youth are the Greens, who receive almost as many votes as the CSU. The FDP is also relatively popular among young people under 30. So the chances of liberals getting into representative bodies of power in a country with a rapidly aging population are becoming increasingly lower. In general, this situation confirms the thesis expressed by Sir Winston Churchill: “Whoever was not a liberal in his youth is a heartless person. Anyone who has not become a conservative by maturity is simply a fool.” Considering that the liberal agenda is being intensively implanted in the minds of voters through the media, it is not surprising that young people, whom life in a well-fed and generally safe Germany has not yet forced to form a clear political position, more often vote with their hearts than with their minds. Moreover, the higher the level of education, the fewer conservatives there are among voters: the Bavarian elections clearly confirmed this. In the group of university graduates, the Greens are by a small margin the most representative force - 31%. The SPD and FDP also showed the highest results - 11% and 6% respectively. A completely different situation is observed in the group of people with a certificate of incomplete secondary education: here the CSU and Free Voters achieved the greatest results - 43% and 19%, respectively. But the “greens” would not have gotten into the Landtag at all if only this group of voters had come to the polling stations. The AfD, with 21%, ranks second behind the CSU among both voters with a junior high school diploma and voters with a high school diploma. The parties of Germany's ruling traffic light coalition are clearly less popular among these groups. And here the results are also quite obvious for interpretation: people of working professions value stability above ephemeral problems such as concern for climate conservation, “green energy” and assistance to Ukraine, and therefore vote for conservative forces that are not inclined to revolutionary changes in the usual way of life. The differences between men and women are much smaller than between different age and educational groups. The largest differences are observed in favor of the AfD: 18% of men surveyed voted for this party and only 13% of women. Among men, AfD took second place, among women - only fourth. Bavarian workers voted more conservatively than all other occupational groups. Here AfD showed its best result - 25%. The CSU and Free Voters are also strongly represented - 36% and 17% respectively. Thus, center-right parties account for almost 80% of the sympathies of the Bavarian working class. And the SPD, it seems, had to say goodbye to its main brand - the workers' party. It is curious that among civil servants the Greens showed the highest level of support, while the AfD, on the contrary, shows the lowest result (9%). Thus, the elections to the Bavarian Landtag helped to reveal the most important trend in the picture of preferences of German voters: the ruling “traffic light coalition”, from which disappointment is growing in all layers of German society, is losing ground on all fronts. The somewhat hypocritical change from pacifist rhetoric to militaristic one, as well as thoughtless aid to Ukraine to the detriment of its own country, together with contradictory migration policies, could not but affect the ratings of all three of its main forces. The conservative CDU/CSU, due to its old merits, political capital accumulated in Bavaria, and formal opposition to the current government, remains the leading political force, although its ratings are no longer as high as in the “golden” years of 1990–2000. But the AfD party improves its results every year, sensitively sensing the mood of voters. It is likely that by the next elections to the Bundestag this political force will already occupy a solid second place. |
| Posted by:badanov |