“Exceeded my imagination”
Rehlinger announces sole government of the Saar SPD
03/28/2022 10:29 am
The Social Democrats emerge as clear winners from the Saarland state elections. Her top candidate Rehlinger sees this vote as a mandate for her party to govern the country alone. She promptly declares the heart of the Saarland to be a “boss thing”.
Election winner Anke Rehlinger is aiming for a sole government of the SPD in Saarland. The path is now clear for the coming days and weeks in terms of forming a government, Rehlinger said on ARD. It should be launched quickly. It is important that a new government comes into being quickly. “And I want to take care of that – and in this case as a sole government.”
In the past, cooperation with the CDU in the grand coalition was good, said the social democratic top candidate on Deutschlandfunk. But now the voters have obviously made their decision. “It’s not just a narrow majority that we have now achieved here as the Saar SPD, but that’s already a clear majority with 29 seats. In this respect, we accept this voter mandate.”
Rehlinger was surprised by the clarity of her election victory. The survey values have been good and stable in the past few weeks. “The fact that there will be an absolute majority in the end has surpassed my imagination – and I’m a fundamentally optimistic person.” It is a very nice result. Rehlinger emphasized that the topic of jobs was the decisive factor for the Saarlanders. “That’s why I want to make it a matter for the bosses in the State Chancellery,” she said. “Structural change is omnipresent in our country.” It must be coordinated within the state government, but also with the important partners outside the government.
CDU deputy does not see the federal party to blame for the election debacle
SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil sees the “sensational victory” of the SPD in Saarland as a signal for the further state elections in 2022. “We have now shown twice in different constellations that we can turn things around,” said Klingbeil. The incumbent did not run for the federal election and Olaf Scholz won. “In the Saarland elections, Anke Rehlinger won with the SPD against the CDU incumbent. This also gives impetus to the other elections in Schleswig-Holstein, North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony,” emphasized the SPD politician.
According to the preliminary final result, the SPD had won 43.5 percent of the votes in the state elections in Germany’s smallest area on Sunday. It is therefore not dependent on a coalition partner. The CDU of the previous Prime Minister Tobias Hans fell to 28.5 percent after 40.7 percent five years ago.
According to party deputy Carsten Linnemann, the debacle of the CDU is not due to a lack of support from the federal CDU. The entire federal executive board as well as the ministers and prime ministers were in Saarland before the vote, Linnemann said on ARD. He attributed the SPD’s strong result primarily to the high level of popularity of its top candidate, Anke Rehlinger. The performance of the CDU should not be taken lightly. Linnemann also countered the impression that women were underrepresented at the top of the CDU. “We have never had as many women on the federal executive board as we do now.” Should Rehlinger be elected prime minister, then four of the eight SPD heads of government would be women. The CDU does not have a female prime minister.
In addition to the SPD and CDU, only the AfD managed to get into the Saarbrücken state parliament with 5.7 percent; The FDP and the Greens missed out on re-entering parliament, the left were elected out of the state parliament and only got 2.6 percent.