Survey after election defeats
A narrow FDP majority votes to stay in the traffic lights
January 1, 2024, 2:43 p.m
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In Bavaria, the FDP missed entry into the state parliament in October, but in Hesse it barely made it over the five percent hurdle. State and local associations blame the traffic light’s poor government work for this. They expressed their dissatisfaction in a member survey.
In the FDP member survey, a narrow majority voted to remain in the traffic light coalition. 52.24 percent of voters advocate continuing government work with the SPD and the Greens. 47.76 percent want to leave the coalition. 26,058 of the approximately 72,100 FDP members took part in the vote, i.e. only a little more than one in three. The result is not binding for the party committees, but it is an important reflection of the mood.
The FDP federal executive committee started the survey on December 18th after 598 party members requested it. Members were able to participate online for two weeks. The question was: “Should the FDP end the coalition with the SPD and the Greens as part of the federal government?” The answer could be “yes” or “no”.
The survey was the result of an open letter from 26 state and local politicians from the FDP who, after the poor election results in Hesse and Bavaria, demanded that the FDP should reconsider its coalition partners. In Bavaria, the FDP missed entry into the state parliament in October. In Hesse she managed just over the five percent hurdle.
Election year 2024 promises further problems
In the 2021 federal election, the Liberals under party leader Christian Lindner achieved 11.5 percent. The FDP is now only at around 5 percent in nationwide surveys – so it is unclear whether it would even get into the Bundestag if there were elections now.
FDP Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki advised in November not to vote for an exit from the federal government. He said in the “Münchner Merkur” that he believed in the common sense of the overwhelming majority of his party friends “not to vote for an escape from responsibility.” He warned of a very difficult election campaign for the FDP in the event of an exit and said: “We will not win an election campaign with the slogan: We have failed.”
The 2024 election year also promises to be difficult for the FDP. The polls for the three state elections in September in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg put the Liberals at three to five percent. In Saxony and Brandenburg, the FDP does not yet sit in the state parliament.