Earlier, the SPD was a trade unionist and labour party. Today, the SPD is in a Dilemma, says election researcher Thorsten Faas. You need the workers, but also additional support, in order to be able to command a majority.
Deutsche Welle: Mr. Faas, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is considered to be the heart chamber of the SPD. What is it that she has a so bad result?
Thorsten Faas: If we compare the election with previous elections, on the Parliament level, the government of Hannelore Kraft was simply not popular enough – neither the personal values of the Prime Minister, nor the assessment of the coalition have served as a tailwind. Also from the so-called “Schulz-effect” was not enough. With Armin Laschet someone who is straight to the target as the trust has presented a worthy Alternative.
Martin Schulz has said in the run-up, if the SPD wins in NRW, then he would in the autumn Chancellor. How clever of the SPD is to link these two elections to be verbally so tight to each other?
They had of course hoped that the result would be different. It is believed that it is a clever move, could be deduced from the state election, with the parliamentary elections in the autumn will turn out. That didn’t work. In this respect, you will certainly say in retrospect that it was a strategic error of the SPD. The SPD of Schulz has not yet won any state election, now you don’t need to tell a story of why he and Angela Merkel are calling for in the fall still has a Chance only challenge, but defeat also.
Choice Researchers Thorsten Faas
The relationship between the SPD and its traditional core clientele, the working class, has become brittle. What’s going wrong?
If you look at the choice of analysis of the Sunday evening, then you see that such a choice results are not anchored as much in social structures. You see, actually, relatively small differences in the choice behavior of employees, workers, self-employed. The question is, where’s someone has and how he lives, is no longer so decisive for the choice of behavior – just as the used to be.
The relationship between the workers and the SPD has a long and chequered history. The SPD listens, but this programmatic incision in the social policy of the Federal Republic of Germany, has led to a sustainable disturbance between labour and the SPD. In addition, today There are simply fewer workers than in the past. That is, even if the SPD would make a work policy, in its purest form, then this would not be enough to win an election. This creates a Dilemma: The SPD the workers as a Basis, but further support needs to be supported by a majority. Since the party has not yet found a perfect middle ground.
The CDU appears to have mobilized many voters. Have Laschet the voters because for Armin or the CDU decided?
It is noteworthy that it is for the CDU to succeed from the increased turnout to benefit greatly. This is rather unusual, because you actually thought that left-wing parties like the SPD and the “Left” are very sensitive to a rising or falling participation in elections. Otherwise, you can a large current from the SPD to the Union. The population is differentiated well, who wants to see you at the head of a government. Armin Laschet can claim from the result of quite a mandate.
What has Laschet for more help, he moved as a supporter of Angela Merkel in the election campaign, or that it occurred at the end rather than domestic political hard-liners?
This is a highly interesting question, because this is a strong contrast to what we have seen in 2016 in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Julia Klöckner (CDU) had tried to put on the page behind Angela Merkel, but in the state election as a Hardliner presented. This is not your liked, ultimately, on the feet, because you have said, you know, what it stands for. It went to Armin Laschet different, perhaps indicates that we experience a certain shift in emphasis. The refugee is not so much a crisis where Laschet significantly behind the Chancellor stood, but it comes to the aspects of internal security. And with a harder course in these matters one has to be able to the people in NRW seem to win.
Why have seen the liberals of the FDP, such a growth?
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I do believe that you can deduce that the FDP has a visibility problem and you get this Problem with prominent visible candidate in the handle. This was in Schleswig-Holstein, Wolfgang Kubicki, and in NRW, Christian Lindner of the case. Lindner had also elected, quite a clever move, to say that he wanted to go to Berlin. And the more he has come from the NRW, the more he could act on the Federal level. This mandate gave him the citizens of North Rhine-Westphalia. I would not drink, yet at the same time now, too much champagne, on the part of the FDP. It was in the NRW election, a nationwide survey, the FDP stood at six percent. This is still pretty damn close to five percent off. With the actual election result for the FDP was a great evening, but no guarantee, that you will move in in the fall of that security in the Bundestag.
The CDU and the SPD can argue with this result of over 30 percent, as people’s parties. The party landscape in Germany is comparatively stable?
In a historical comparison, the results of the CDU and the SPD are actually bad. The party landscape is in motion. As we come to speak automatically to the AfD. It is no longer a warring party, for the first time in NRW commenced, the issue of refugees is currently so dominant and yet she has achieved more than seven per cent. This suggests that there is a base that is addressed by the AfD, which is not only the issue of refugees needs as a motivation to choose the party. What to allow in the sum, then, the conclusion that the party has also in the autumn a very good Chance to be in the next Bundestag present. And this is, I believe, the actual shift in the party system, the one we are experiencing now. There is also the coalition formation processes makes it so difficult, if we have with the left party on the one hand, and the AfD on the other side of the two actors, with which the other parties do not, or at least want to form a coalition either, and only very reluctantly.
The desire for a real political change Laschet is not supported actually, but still. After all, he was always rather moderate, the left wing of the CDU. What to expect from him – no matter in what coalition?
I think first of all, that for the CDU a more moderate not-so-conservative candidate is a necessary condition to be in NRW successfully. And then he will look at, I think, very carefully, as Jürgen Rüttgers, which was adopted in 2005, the CDU-Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia and then, but only for five years ruled. He will look very carefully at why it Rüttgers is not at that time succeeded, resulting in a sustainable CDU-success concept. He says deliberately that he would not do anything differently, but first it is worth to rule the country better.
Thorsten Faas is a German political scientist and election researcher. He is a University Professor at the Institute for political science, Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz.