In the elections to the Landtags of Baden-Wurttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, the CDU party showed the worst results to date. In Baden-Wurttemberg, the Greens won (32.6 percent), while the CDU won 24.1 percent. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the strongest party was the SPD (35.7 percent), while 27.7 percent of voters voted for the CDU. The European press believes that the first elections of this rich year for the upcoming elections allow us to judge a lot.

A bad sign for autumn

The CDU should be seriously concerned, says the BBC’s Germany correspondent Damien McGuinness:

“The CDU’s results in the last election were much worse than expected. This is blamed on the party’s policy in the fight against the pandemic. The growing number of infections and prolonged vaccination have clouded the mood of the electorate. In addition, the people are outraged that some conservative MPs received a commission from government transactions in the process of purchasing masks. Merkel herself is still popular. But with only six months to go until the end of her chancellorship, the current election results do not bode well for her party in the upcoming Bundestag elections.”

This is the payback for scandals

As Dnevnik notes, the reasons for the defeat are obvious:

“Politicians who did not adhere to anti-epidemic measures, as well as deputies who demanded a large commission for mediation in the purchase of masks, are to blame for the outcome of these elections. Despite the fact that the CDU/ CSU has consistently responded to the transgressions of its parliamentarians, who eventually had to withdraw their parliamentary powers, the party’s reputation has suffered irreparable damage-especially since it is still unclear whether there were isolated cases. If at the beginning of the year it still seemed that the CDU could look forward to the autumn parliamentary elections with optimism and that it was more about who would become the next chancellor — Armin Lachette or Markus Zeder, now the situation has changed radically.”

The greens will still make a noise!

The publication Dagens Nyheter writes that for the success of the Greens in the elections in Baden-Wurttemberg, first of all, we should thank the head of the land Winfried Kretschmann:

“The success of the Greens in Germany is no doubt due to the collapse of the SPD and the problem of global warming. But the party grew significantly even when the “realists” replaced the fundamentalists in the party camp. Undoubtedly, there are still supporters of bans and those who oppose free trade in its ranks, but in general, the Greens are no longer afraid of economic growth. And no one has embodied this change better than Kretschmann. … He combined his concern for the climate problem — and the realization that hundreds of thousands of jobs in the German automotive industry cannot be replaced in the blink of an eye. … If, in the future, the Greens and the CDU can once again rule in Baden-Wurttemberg — and maybe Berlin — it means that nothing is impossible for their counterparts in Sweden, either.”