Stab in North Rhine -Westphalia: CDU celebrates election victories in NRW – Merz appeals to the SPD

Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) has also referred to the success of the Christian Democrats in the local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia as a work mandate for the federal government. “This is also an order for us to show together now that we can solutions that we also want to advance the country,” said Merz after visiting the CDU state board in Düsseldorf.

The two local election rounds in North Rhine -Westphalia have given the CDU and SPD equally, but also sensitive defeats. There was relief from both parties that the AfD did not bring a mayor candidate in the most populous state.

In the future, the CDU will provide fewer mayors in NRW than the SPD, but much more district administrators than the Social Democrats. The Greens were able to win their nationwide mayor post in Münster.

Merz appealed to his coalition partner SPD in Berlin not to draw any false conclusions from the sometimes disappointing election results in Dortmund. In the Ruhr area metropolis ruled by the SPD for almost 80 years, the CDU candidate Alexander Omar Kalouti won the OB post in the runoff election.

The SPD in NRW is no longer as strong as it once was, said Merz. The Union and the SPD would now have to ensure that the broad political center will continue to find themselves in the coalition of the Union and the SPD. “And above all, these are the employees.”

Merz said that he called Federal Minister of Labor and SPD Bärbel BAS on Sunday evening and congratulated her for great success in Duisburg, where Sören Link had won against the AfD candidate. The AfD has become stronger in NRW, but not as strong as it hoped, Merz emphasized. Even if there is confidence in the respective people, “then we have a great opportunity to achieve stable political majorities in the political center”.

Wüst: Union appears closed

NRW Prime Minister and CDU state chief Hendrik Wüst described the election sequence in NRW as a result of a “total team performance” at all levels up to the Chancellor. He thanked Merz for his commitment in local election campaign despite all the foreign policy obligations. “The people in our country have seen that the Union was closed and competed together,” said Wüst. The local elections in North Rhine -Westphalia showed that “the CDU was the only remaining People’s Party in NRW”. “We are local party number one in North Rhine-Westphalia and that applies in the same way to rural regions as well as in the cities.”

According to the state party, the CDU has won more than 6,800 mandates in councils and district councils in the local elections, so the SPD came to almost 4,000 mandates. According to the CDU survey, the Greens received a good 2,000 municipal mandates, the AfD almost 1,900. The AfD had not started everywhere.

In Bonn and Aachen, CDU applicants replaced the incumbent Greens Mayor. Bielefeld, Leverkusen and Solingen will also no longer be ruled by the SPD, but by the CDU. The state capital of Düsseldorf and Essen also remain in the CDU hand. In Hagen, the CDU candidate won over the AfD rival.

SPD can book victory in Cologne for itself

The biggest success for the SPD is the Mayor in the Cologne City Council. In the fourth largest German city, the sports official Torsten Burmester won over Berivan Aymaz from the Greens. The SPD was also able to recapture the OB armchair in Oberhausen. In Duisburg and Gelsenkirchen, SPD applicants successfully prevailed against AfD candidates. Other important Ruhr area cities such as Bochum, Herne and Bottrop remain in the SPD hand.

In the elections of the councils and district councils on September 14, the CDU had once again become strongest strength despite slight losses. The SPD came to 22.1 percent, the AfD almost triple its result in the most populous federal state to 14.5 percent. The Greens suffered significant losses after their rushing of 2020 and only finished fourth at 13.5 percent – behind the AfD.

The SPD state chairman Sarah Philipp named the loss of the mayor’s office in Dortmund a “painful defeat”. This has to be processed on site, said Philipp on Deutschlandfunk. But it is also clear that nowhere can a town hall be “leased” by a party for all eternity. The SPD also achieved success in the runoff election – and these success stories have to be transferred to the entire country.

For co-state chief Achim Post, the results of the SPD are a “strong signal that our party can convince with credible personalities and a policy that is based on people’s concerns and hopes”.

The NRW SPD will also draw conclusions from the painful defeats in Dortmund and Bielefeld. “We understood that we have to readjust parts of our style and our program in order to regain the trust of many people,” admitted Post, who is also a deputy SPD federal chairman.

Post was concerned about the strong performance of the AfD. This poses the democratic middle of huge challenges. “It is the task of all democratic parties to strengthen the middle and push the AfD back.”

Serious breakdown in Mülheim

When counting the runoff votes for the office of mayor, there was a serious breakdown in Mülheim an der Ruhr, which turns the result upside down. Unlike initially, there is probably no change of power in the town hall. The city corrected the preliminary end result on Monday evening. Accordingly, incumbent Marc Buchholz (CDU) is now in front – and not his competitor Nadia Khalaf (SPD).