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EXPLAINED: Why Sunday’s state parliament vote in NRW is important for German politics

People are going to the polls in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) on Sunday to vote in the state election, with many seeing this as a test for the federal government. We unpick the key players and likely outcomes.

Published: 15 May 2022 11:12 CEST
State Premier Hendrik Wüst (L) and Thomas Kutschaty (R), North-Rhine Westphalia's SPD party's chairman. 
PIctured are the two leading candidates in North Rhine-Westphalia's state election: State Premier Hendrik Wüst (L) and Thomas Kutschaty (R), North-Rhine Westphalia's SPD party's chairman. John MACDOUGALL, Ina FASSBENDER / AFP / POOL

Sunday’s vote in North Rhine-Westphalia is the third state parliament election to take place since last year’s federal election. But it’s a very different ballgame to the previous votes in Saarland or Schleswig-Holstein, primarily due to the large number of people going to the polls: 13 million people are eligible to vote in the state, which is why it has been dubbed a “mini federal election” by some.

NRW is Germany’s most populous state and is therefore a political force to be reckoned with, meaning that the outcomes of Sunday’s state election could have consequences for Berlin.

What’s the current situation?
Christian Democrat Hendrik Wüst currently leads the state after taking over last year when Armin Laschet resigned as state premier following his unsuccessful federal election bid. The CDU is in a coalition with the liberal Free Democrats after replacing the SPD-Greens coalition five years ago.

There are currently 199 ministers and five parliamentary groups represented in the Landtag, or state parliament, which is elected for a five-year term. 

Is Wüst likely to hold on to the leadership?
It looks like it’s going to be a close race. The CDU and the Social Democrats are both polling at around 30 percent, with the CDU having a slight lead of two to four percentage points. Meanwhile, the FDP appears to have lost support.

The below table from DAWUM shows the results from recent polls.

table of German state election polls

Who are the main players?
The two leading candidates are 46-year-old Hendrik Wüst (CDU) and 53-year-old Thomas Kutschaty (SPD). Both have previous government experience, Wüst as minister of transport and Kutschaty as minister of justice. The liberal FDP candidate is Joachim Stamp, Mona Neubaur is standing for the Greens and Markus Wagner for the right-wing AfD.  

What were the main topics in the election campaign?
Covid-19 hasn’t gone away and the war in Ukraine has also featured heavily in the run-up to the election. Other subjects close to voters’ hearts include energy security amid the phasing out of coal and rising petrol and energy prices; climate change; education policy and affordable housing. 

The election campaign has been marked by the ongoing discussion about Germany delivering weapons to Ukraine and the so-called Mallorca affair also heated things up. Environment minister Ursula Heinen-Esser resigned at the beginning of April after it emerged the CDU politician had met with other cabinet members in Mallorca to celebrate her husband’s birthday last July – this was just days after Germany’s flood disaster began.

READ ALSO: Volunteer army rebuilds Germany’s flood-stricken towns

The FDP and the Greens, meanwhile, are concentrating on issues such as economic policy and climate protection.

What are the implications for Berlin?
There’s a lot at stake here, especially for the CDU and SPD. 

If the CDU were voted out of office in NRW, then the Union party would only have five out of 16 state premiers, while the SPD would lead a total of nine states, with one state head in NRW. 

But if the SPD loses, this could be a confirmation of a downward trend after their major defeat in the Schleswig-Holstein election, where they suffered their worst ever result in the state. This could then also be attributed to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ politics. 

However, the CDU could ride on the momentum from their landslide win in Schleswig-Holstein and exert more pressure on the SPD with more confidence, even in opposition.

After performing well in Schleswig-Holstein, the Greens will also be expecting another success. This should increase the confidence of the party in Berlin and strengthen their position in the coalition. 

But the FDP – the smallest traffic light partner in the federal alliance – must expect to lose some government responsibility in NRW after losses in Schleswig-Holstein. 

And there could be a lot more at stake for the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party (AfD): they failed to get the 5 percent electoral threshold needed for representation in state parliament in Schleswig-Holstein and if they don’t get it in NRW either, this is likely to fuel unrest and in-fighting at the federal level, too. Polls, however, put them at a comfortable 8 percent. 

Further declines are expected for the Left with election polls making it look unlikely they will make it into the state parliament, after narrowly missing out five years ago.

READ ALSO: Four things the Schleswig-Holstein vote tells us about German politics

What do the polls predict?
According to a pre-election poll carried out by broadcaster ARD, the CDU stood at 30 percent with the SPD just behind at 28 percent. The Greens were lagging behind at 16 percent and the FDP at 8 percent.

Based on that poll, it’s not enough for the status quo – black and yellow or CDU and FDP – to continue. A coalition between CDU and SPD (red) would technically be possible, but is incredibly unlikely and it’s just enough for a black-green alliance but not quite enough for a red-green one.

Looking at the numbers, a three-party alliance is more likely. A Jamaica coalition of CDU, Greens and FDP is one option while a traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP is also not entirely out of the question. Deputy Minister President Stamp (FDP) has spoken out in favour of continuing the coalition with the CDU, but has not ruled out a traffic light combination.

The top candidates from the CDU, SPD, Greens and FDP are keeping all coalition options open and ruling out nothing except for cooperation with AfD. 

If we go by the polls, it’s possible that neither the CDU or the SPD will win enough votes to become the strongest political force. In that event, the decisions of the parties who would be needed to form a coalition, especially the Greens, would be key.

When do the results come out?
Polling stations are open until 6pm. The counting of the votes starts as soon as they close and exit polls are published at this point, too. The first projection based on interim results is expected around 6.30pm with projections becoming more precise over the course of the evening as more votes are counted.

If you want to see it all play out, you’re probably going to have to wait until at least the early hours of the morning. At the last election five years ago, the final preliminary outcome was announced around 4am the next day. The definitive final result is not published until it has been verified – this can take several days or weeks.

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CLIMATE CRISIS

INTERVIEW: ‘Failed climate policies are fuelling far-right politics in Germany’

Alt-right political parties tend to oppose environmental protections, but is there a connection between their political success and climate policy failures? Author and thought-leader Sandrine Dixson-Declève explains why Germany may be having a ‘1930s moment’, and why the next elections are gravely important.

Published: 17 May 2024 15:24 CEST
INTERVIEW: 'Failed climate policies are fuelling far-right politics in Germany'

It’s understood that far-right and populist political parties tend to either downplay the realities of climate change, or block progressive policies that would try to mitigate its impacts. But the link between failed climate policies and the recent rise of populist parties is rarely addressed.

Speaking as a panellist at the Green Tech Festival in Berlin on Thursday, climate policy thought-leader Sandrine Dixson-Declève voiced concern that poor climate and economic policies are fuelling the popularity of far-right politics in Germany and across Europe. 

Co-president of the Club of Rome, Dixson-Declève works to promote policies that she believes would help secure a sustainable future for humanity. Such policies are laid out in the book Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity, that she co-authored.

The Local spoke with Sandrine Dixson-Declève about Germany’s climate policy failures, and why she thinks the upcoming European elections are of the utmost importance.

The shortcomings of Germany’s ‘Energiewende’ had serious political consequences

Having been a contributor and advisor to Germany’s Energiewende (energy transition), Dixson-Declève has followed German politics and environmental policy for years.

“I believe that one of the biggest mistakes was that we politicised energy policy in Germany from the outset,” she told The Local, adding, “Merkel actually accepted the big green push to pull out of nuclear, which actually created a big mess.”

Germany’s anti-nuclear energy movement dates back to the 19070s, and led to the foundation of the Green party. Under Merkel’s leadership, a plan was adopted to phase out nuclear power with the last three nuclear power plants taken offline in 2023.

But losing nuclear power as an energy source came with some serious consequences.

“The first big mess was the continued burning of coal,” Dixson-Declève explained. “The second big mess was Nord Stream 2, and that led to the invasion of Ukraine…because it gave Putin power.”

Still, she wouldn’t suggest that Germany try to revive its nuclear power now: “I believe that Germany needs to really think through the next steps.”

READ ALSO: ‘Nuclear power is a dead horse in Germany’: Scholz rejects reopening plants 

Protestors run past riot police

A wave of protestors break through police lines at Lützerath. Open pit coal mining in west Germany destroyed most of the Hambach Forest, as well as dozens of villages such as Lützerath. At both sites massive citizen protests were met with brutal police evictions. Photo by Paul Krantz.

Energy efficiency is the missing piece to Germany’s climate plans

How to build up renewable energy infrastructure is at the centre of most discourse around curbing fossil fuel use, but using the energy we have more efficiently arguably deserves more immediate attention.

“The other missing link, which no one talks about, is energy efficiency,” Dixson-Declève said. “Actually the best energy is the energy you don’t use. That is unsexy, and that is why energy efficiency hasn’t been taken up the way it should have been since 2010.”

While working on climate and energy plans in 2010, she says she came across a study that said Europe could wean itself off of Russian gas just by putting energy efficiency requirements in place for buildings.

In 2022 the European Commission finally began to take this idea seriously when Germany and Europe suddenly needed to replace Russian gas imports, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Another massive energy saver that has been politicised for all the wrong reasons in Germany is heat pumps.

According to Eurostat data, about half of all energy consumed in the EU is used for heating and cooling, and most of that energy comes from fossil fuels. Heat pumps are significantly more efficient than boilers and allow for greater use of renewable energy sources.

But when Economy Minister Robert Habeck led an effort to promote heat pumps by banning new fossil-powered heating systems, conservative and far-right parties jumped on the issue as if it were an attack on personal freedoms. 

“As environmentalists, we need to get better at translating the environmental narrative into something that resonates with people,” said Dixson-Declève. 

READ ALSO: Reader question – How do I install a heat pump in my German property?

A unified coalition government that is serious about climate protections might have better communicated to people that heat pumps would ultimately save them money: “They should have been enabled in a way that truly assisted people in getting the heat that they needed in an affordable way at the right time.”

‘I am very scared we are in a 1930s moment’

Whereas the coalition government has largely failed to communicate to voters how environmental policies will improve their lives and save them money, conservative and far-right parties have done extremely well at hijacking the narrative. 

The European People’s Party (EPP – the EU’s largest conservative party), for example, is particularly adept at using citizens’ economic concerns to block environmental policies.

Having analysed the EPP’s manifestos, Dixson-Declève notes that they acknowledge the need to mitigate climate change, but say that protections cannot cost. 

“I think the EPP has done a very good job both of putting in fear of the greens, [as if] they’re only going to think about green climate policies and not about social policies [whereas] we’re here to think about you.”

Sandrine Dixson-Declève with Earth for All

Sandrine Dixson-Declève holds up a copy of the book ‘Earth for All’ alongside two of the book’s co-authors. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Wolfgang Kumm

Germany’s far-right parties tend to use similar messaging to try and convince voters that they will better improve the lives of citizens than the current coalition parties have. 

READ ALSO: Why are the far-right AfD doing so well in German polls?

Nearly 100 years ago, the National Socialist (Nazi) party succeeded in drumming up major support along similar lines.

Speaking as a panellist at Berlin’s Green Tech Festival, when asked how she thought European politicians were doing on climate issues, Dixson-Declève described them as deer in the headlights, adding, “I am very scared we are in a 1930s moment”.

“I think that in the 1930s we didn’t see Hitler coming, we didn’t read the tea leaves,” she told The Local, adding that in the present moment, “people are suffering. When people suffer, they look to anything, any message that’s going to make them feel like that next leader is going to help them.” 

She also suggests that we can’t count on the youth vote to save us, citing Argentina and Portugal as two places where young voters have actually pushed politics to the right recently.

READ ALSO: A fight for the youth vote: Are German politicians social media savvy enough?

“This is a tipping moment politically, and if we’re not careful, it could explode in our faces,” said Dixson-Declève. “We need to get as many people to vote this year [as possible]. It’s an absolutely fundamental vote, alongside the United States, in order to make sure that we don’t slide to the right across Europe.”

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