A bellwether election in Germany’s most populous state has shown a further eroding of support for populist parties on the far ends of the political spectrum, thrown up questions over the pulling power of the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and entrenched the growing authority of the Greens.
Electoral trends in North Rhine-Westphalia mirrored those the previous weekend in Germany’s northernmost state, Schleswig-Holstein, where the CDU and Greens also managed to score significant gains and are expected to continue governing in a three-way coalition with the FDP. Here too, the SPD achieved its worst result of the postwar era, with only 16% of the vote.
The struggles of the two parties, whose positions are diametrically opposed on most issues other than Russia, predates the war in Ukraine, however. The double blow for the Social Democrats, meanwhile, comes just over six months after Scholz and his party stormed to a triumphant photo finish at national elections, in which the taciturn northerner managed to successfully offer himself up as a leader in the calm, pragmatic mould of the outgoing chancellor Angela Merkel.