In a close race, the Greens won the state election in Baden-Württemberg, ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU. The far-right AfD was the third strongest party, having made significant gains.
Greens ahead of CDU in Baden-Württemberg
The Green Party won the state election in Baden-Württemberg, according to the preliminary final results.
After all constituencies had been counted, they finished just ahead of the CDU with 30.2% of the vote, compared to the CDU’s 29.7%.
It is likely that the Greens and the CDU will govern the state together again, as they did in the previous term. Both parties won 56 seats each.
According to the results, the far-right AfD party came in third with 18.8% of the vote.
Meanwhile, the SPD had its worst showing in a state election, earning only 5.5% and barely clearing the five percent threshold.
Voter turnout was 69.6%, up from 63.8% in the previous election five years ago.
Özdemir declares victory in Baden-Württemberg election
Green Party frontrunner Cem Özdemir declared victory in the Baden-Württemberg state poll.
“We won the election,” he said at his party’s celebration on Sunday evening.
With nearly all the votes counted, projections gave the Greens, led by Özdemir, 30.2%, while the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), led by Manuel Hagel, received 29.7%.
Meanwhile, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was on track to see the largest increase in votes, nearly doubling its result from the 2021 elections. The party was on track to take third place with 18.8%.
The Social Democrats (SPD) only managed to secure 5.5% of the vote. The Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Left Party failed to crack the 5% threshold needed to secure a seat in parliament.
‘Flexi-Greens’ lead vote in automaker heartland
In Baden‑Württemberg, Germany’s car-manufacturing heartland, early projections put the Greens outpacing the CDU and far-right AfD the closely watched state elections.
SPD limps in with another disastrous election result
Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) knew they would not be putting up double digits in Baden-Württemberg on Sunday night but the 5.5% of the vote that they did take — hemorrhaging half their votes from 2021 — was nevertheless another major setback for the ailing people’s party.
The party’s top candidate in the state announced his retirement immediately following the vote.
SPD Vice-Chair and German Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil said he was hoping for a better result in two weeks, when voters in the neighboring state of Rhineland-Palatinate head to the polls.
Both Klingbeil and fellow party Co-Chair Bärbel Bas say the personality politics that benefitted the Greens in Baden-Württemberg Sunday — in the showdown between Özdemir and Hagel — will work in their favor in Rhineland-Palatinate.
SPD State Premier Alexander Schweitzer currently leads his CDU challenger Gordon Schneider by a comfortable margin.
Bas called Sunday’s result “bitter,” saying the party had failed to score points with the issues that it focused on and blaming the two-way state premier race for vacuuming up SPD votes.
AfD claims to be night’s big winner despite running third
Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, federal co-chairs of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) said Sunday evening that they were “very satisfied” with state election results.
The party is on course to rack up between 17.6 and 17.9% of the vote, coming close to doubling its 9.7% tally from 2021. The result puts the AfD in third place overall, behing the Greens and the CDU.
Chrupalla said the party is now “the biggest opposition party in Baden-Württemberg,” with Weidel saying the situation echoes the party’s role in the federal government and emphasizing that the AfD would continue to doggedly do the work required of a strong opposition.
Chrupalla characterized the result as “a huge success,” adding, “we are tonight’s winners.”
Greens celebrate ‘great victory’
Green Party Chair Franziska Brantner said her party’s election victory “sends a good signal from Baden-Württemberg to the rest of the republic.”
Brantner praised voters’ courage and optimism and the fact that they had decided “not to turn back to the past.”
The big winner of the night was the Greens’ top candidate, Cem Özdemir, who beat out CDU candidate Manuel Hagel to become Baden-Württemberg’s next state premier.
Özdemir, a former agriculture minister who is viewed as a pragmatist, was accused by the CDU of running away from his party’s core environmental message in the industrial state, emphasizing that his election posters mentioned business more often than the climate.
CDU top candidate Hagel takes ‘responsibility’ for election loss
After failing to win the key Baden-Württemberg state election on Sunday, top CDU candidate Manuel Hagel said responsibility for the upset lie with him. Hagel did not go into detail about what went wrong and what taking responsibility for the loss actually meant.
The early frontrunner, Hagel’s candidacy went into a tailspin after a video interview of him making sexist comments about schoolgirls he met during a political stop in 2018 resurfaced.
CDU Secretary General Carsten Linnemann sought to put a positive spin on the result.
“We’ve passed a lot of legislation in the Bundestag” (…) “and held a unified party congress” he said, noting that Chancellor Merz’s federal policies had “put wind in the sails” of state candidates.
Greens lead in Baden-Würtemberg election
Germany’s Greens party came in first in the state election in the southern region of Baden-Württemberg, initial forecasts showed after polls closed on Sunday.
The result was a disappointment for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative CDU party, as polls had previously shown a closer result.
The first forecasts on public broadcaster ARD showed the Greens in first place with 32% of the vote, followed by Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) on 29% and the AfD on 17.5%.
CCTV to be installed in big slaughterhouses: draft bill
Large-scale slaughterhouses in Germanywill be obligated to install CCTV cameras to ensure animal welfare laws are being observed, according to a new draft law.
The draft by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Regional Identity says footage of “animal welfare sensitive processes,” such as the animals’ anaesthesia before slaughtering, will then be made available to the authorities.
German Minister Alois Rainer, of the Bavarian CSU party, said the law would shut a “blind spot” when it comes to animal welfare.
The bill still needs to be approved by Germany’s government after allowing federal states and other interest groups to express their thoughts on the proposal.
Paralympics: medals for Germany on opening weekend
After Anna-Lena Forster won gold for Germany in the women’s alpine skiing at the Paralympics on Saturday, Team D (for Deutschland) added further medals on Sunday.
In the women’s para biathlon, Anja Wicker won silver and Johanna Recktenwald won bronze, while Marco Maier won bronze in the men’s biathlon sprint.
“Incredible, it’s what you dream of – two races, two medals,” said Wicker, who also won silver in the sprint on Saturday. “I had to pinch myself.”
On Saturday evening, gold medalist Forster was welcomed back to Team D headquarters by a huge crowd of teammates, family and friends. “I’m just overwhelmed,” she said.
Also on hand to offer congratulations was German under-secretary for sport Christiane Schenderlein, who had watched Forster’s performance live.
“It was so much fun to be present and experience that moment up close,” said the CDU politician. “[Forster] is an incredibly positive person with so much experience. It’s always very moving to accompany these events and meet the athletes.”
Three dead in Alpine accidents in Germany and Austria
Three people have died in separate accidents in mountainous areas of Germany and Austria this weekend, local authorities in both countries have confirmed.
Police in Schliersee in the southern German state of Bavaria said that a 74-year-old woman from Munich died after slipping on frozen snow while descending the Bodenschneid mountain on Saturday.
On Saturday night, Bavarian police said a 46-year-old man died after falling into a steep wooded area while descending the Petersberg mountain. The man was with an accompanying person “and one other person,” said officers, who are investigating.
And in Austria, a 43-year-old skier from Bavaria died after falling on an off-piste descent from the top of the Thaneller peak, local media reported.
Despite sunnier and warmer March weather, authorities have warned that mountain conditions are still wintery in shaded areas.
Germany to lose 150,000 jobs in the metal sector: Gesamtmetall
The head of the employers’ association Gesamtmetall has warned that up to 150,000 jobs in Germany’s metal and electrical industry could be lost this year.
In an interview with the Funke Media Group, Oliver Zander said the industry was in “crisis.”
“We are in the midst of deindustrialization and the outlook is very bleak. The situation is truly dramatic,” he said.
“We have already lost 270,000 jobs since 2018. Last month, the number of employees in our industry fell below 3.8 million” for the first time since 2015, he added.
Zander blamed German bureaucracy as well as high energy costs, corporate taxes and social security payments for the sector’s woes.
“We are so unattractive that there is no longer sufficient investment here, so that production facilities are becoming obsolete and no new jobs are being created,” he said.
Germany relocates embassy staff in Tehran
The German Foreign Office says staff at the German Embassy in Tehran have been moved as a result of the Iran war.
“The safety of our employees is our top priority and is therefore constantly being discussed by the German government’s crisis management team,” the Foreign Office said Sunday.
It said the embassy’s staff had been relocated to an undisclosed location “temporarily due to the threat situation.”
It added that the embassy’s work had already been heavily reduced as a precaution since mid-January, but that it “can still be reached.”
Security in the Middle East has deteriorated since last weekend, when the US and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran. Tehran then carried out retaliatory attacks on Israel and US military installations in Gulf countries. Since then, the conflict has escalated, with attacks from both sides continuing and Israel launching strikes on Lebanon.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/germany-news-greens-narrowly-win-baden-w%C3%BCrttemberg-election/live-76265491