The Christian Democrat Daniel Günther no longer needs two coalition partners – he gets more than 60 percent of the votes with the Greens alone. There have recently been conflicts with them.
Wind power is one of the key issues in Schleswig-Holstein.
Et löpt, one would say in Low German – it works. Schleswig-Holstein has shown how a Jamaica coalition can work and, as expected, the boss is now taking credit for it. Prime Minister Daniel Günther is the one who held the store together and, through intensive internal coordination, ensured a confidence-inspiring harmony to the outside world. The alliance of Christian Democrats, Greens and Liberals has governed the northernmost federal state harmoniously and constructively since 2017. The voters appreciated that.
Only at the end of March were elections held in Saarland, and there the result of the state election was very different – the CDU collapsed, the Social Democrats now govern alone. Anyone who prematurely took this to be proof that the Union had gone bankrupt after Merkel was wrong – especially at state level it is crucial who the people involved are. Prime Minister Daniel Günther is regarded as the political foster child of ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel. Two of Günther’s strengths are repeatedly emphasized: that he ran his shop unpretentiously and gave everyone their space, and that he was good at communicating in all directions. Over 70 percent of those surveyed are satisfied with his work.
The coalition negotiations already showed the style
“Letting everyone their own space” began with the coalition negotiations. They approached the matter differently than the federal parties, which failed in 2017 in an attempt to form a Jamaica coalition. In Schleswig-Holstein there was no ambition for all partners to agree on all issues. Instead, each party brought in their heartfelt issues, and that’s how it was done. In Günther’s party, this was, among other things, G 9, i.e. the extension of high school to nine years.
The alliance, which was actually born out of necessity, has held out well – which is not to be taken for granted in a federal state that is used to early elections. It could go on like this, but it doesn’t have to, since Günther can simply choose a coalition partner. The extrapolations saw the CDU at a good 43 percent on Sunday evening, the Greens were the second strongest force by 18 percent – together you would easily get to over 60 percent.
A central topic in Schleswig-Holstein is the expansion of wind turbines. A heated argument ignited over the distance regulations of the wind turbines. The Greens want to expand the priority areas for wind energy and reduce the distance between residential buildings and wind turbines. The CDU and FDP reject that. Citizens are also against it, as it is very noisy near wind turbines. Nevertheless, voters gave the Greens a 6 percentage point increase in votes. The FDP, which completely missed the leap into parliament in Saarland, made painful losses in the north, but is further in. The AfD was kicked out for this. The number of non-voters has increased.
Now the focus is on North Rhine-Westphalia
The second major issue is refugee policy. The only 48-year-old head of government, a Catholic in the diaspora in Protestant Schleswig-Holstein, supported the policy of Angela Merkel, who opened the German borders to refugees in 2015 with her famous sentence “We can do it”. Accommodation and distribution then presented the country with major challenges. Schleswig-Holstein also has a problem that is rampant throughout Germany: In the crisis, “tightened service according to the rules” is being done instead of acting quickly and creatively.
The same applies to the Corona crisis, which is currently being overlooked, especially under the impact of the war of aggression against Ukraine. Schleswig-Holstein was one of the countries with the strictest measures. However, since these were well communicated, they were largely accepted by the population.
Next weekend there will be elections in Germany’s most populous federal state, North Rhine-Westphalia. It will be the most important state election this year. It will be interesting to see what the result will be for Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst. He is also a Christian Democrat. Nobody here dares to make such a reliable forecast as in the north.