Prime Minister Boris Rhein is the radiant winner of the Hesse election. He can now choose a coalition partner. But continuing the alliance with the Greens is not automatic.
It’s not surprising: Hesse’s Prime Minister Boris Rhein is in a good mood after his party’s election victory. During his appearance at the CDU election party in the state parliament in Wiesbaden, he was frenetically celebrated by party colleagues and supporters with shouts of “Boris, Boris.”
As the clear election winner, the 51-year-old now has an excellent starting point when looking for a coalition partner. Will there be a third edition of black-green in Hesse? Or will the CDU and SPD come together?
Rhein focuses on key points
When asked about possible future coalitions, Rhein regularly explained during the election campaign how well the black-green government alliance worked together. But at the same time he also flirted with the Social Democrats – as a people’s party, they had “similar experiences” to the CDU, confirmed Rhein.
The head of government always emphasizes that the CDU will prefer the person with whom it can achieve most of its core points. Conversely, this can mean that it depends on the partner’s willingness to compromise. And last but not least, there is the question of how many ministerial positions the junior partner in a new state government claims for themselves.
Rhein is not considered a proven friend of the Greens – he did not forge the incumbent alliance himself, but inherited it from his predecessor Volker Bouffier when he took office at the end of May 2022. So the CDU state leader may be hoping for greater concessions from the Social Democrats in an alliance with the SPD , who were last involved in a government in Hesse almost 25 years ago.
Change is coming
Either way, there is a major upheaval in the cabinet in terms of personnel, even if the CDU and the Greens get together again, because four ministers from the previous state government have announced that they will resign from office regardless of the outcome of the election.
In his own words, Deputy Prime Minister and Economics Minister Tarek Al-Wazir (Greens) has been governing with the CDU since 2014 “in a coalition that I couldn’t really imagine before.” But the alliance knew how to resolve points of contention behind closed doors and, at least externally, acted as a unit on most issues.
However, there were open dissonances, for example, when CDU ministers called for IP addresses to be stored. The Greens then countered that the ministers did not speak for the coalition and therefore not for the state government.
Plus for AfD
According to projections, the right-wing populist AfD will emerge from the election as the second strongest political force and will therefore start its second legislative period significantly stronger – despite internal quarrels. In the past five years, the group has lost 5 of its initial 19 members – through resignations and exclusions.
The AfD will remain in the state parliament opposition, all other factions clearly reject cooperation. For the FDP, the return to the state parliament was initially a tremor; the left-wing faction in Hesse will probably be kicked out of the state parliament after 15 years.
Faeser disappointed
The election campaign in Hesse only gained momentum at the beginning of September after the end of the summer break; it was often about federal political issues such as limiting migration. The top candidates from the CDU, SPD and Greens mostly treated each other with care – possibly also with a view to future coalition negotiations. There were no personal injuries.
SPD top candidate Nancy Faeser was very disappointed with her party’s result at the SPD election party. The 53-year-old said the reason for the poor performance was that she had not been able to understand state political issues such as education during the election campaign.
Faeser had been under constant criticism from her political opponents that her position in the federal cabinet could not be combined with an election campaign. Her statement that she would only return to Hesse as head of government was also criticized by her competitors. Faeser referred to other candidates for top positions who had also applied for office and she always emphasized: “My heart is in Hesse.”
A few days before the election, an SPD election campaign video that portrayed collaboration between the CDU and AfD as possible caused irritation. The Social Democrats deleted the clip and apologized. And the Hesse SPD had to contend with another glitch:
She had to correct a proposal in her election program as to when non-EU foreigners should be allowed to vote in local elections. Due to a transcription error, the paper stated a length of stay of six months instead of six years.
Faeser also came under pressure during the election campaign when she became involved in an affair surrounding the dismissal of an agency head. The matter became a topic in the Bundestag’s Interior Committee. When Faeser didn’t show up for an appointment there, she was accused of trying to avoid critical questions. Only later did she answer questions in the committee.
The first exploratory talks in Wiesbaden are expected to start in the coming days. It is clear that the task of forming a government lies with the CDU – whether the SPD gets beyond the stage of exploratory talks with the Union or whether the CDU wants to continue with the Greens remains to be seen.
Analysis: Rhine benefits from competition
According to election researchers, Hesse’s Prime Minister Boris Rhein benefited from the even worse performance of his SPD opponent Nancy Faeser in his CDU’s state election victory. “Pale prime minister meets completely indisposed challenger,” wrote the elections research group in its analysis.
There was therefore a relatively large federal political influence in the vote. The traffic light parties SPD, Greens and FDP had felt strong headwinds from Berlin.
The AfD in particular was able to benefit from the dissatisfaction with the traffic light parties and the not really convincing performance of the CDU in the federal government. The AfD is only considered to have significant competencies when it comes to refugees and asylum.
“Without an official bonus and with a comparatively modest popularity rating, the incumbent Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU) also benefits from the weakness of his competitors,” writes the elections research group. In terms of reputation, Rhein achieved a relatively weak value of plus 1.5 on the +5/-5 scale for an incumbent.
But the other candidates were also not able to convince: Economics and Energy Minister Tarek Al-Wazir (Greens) got a plus 0.8 and SPD candidate Faeser ended up well in negative territory – minus 1.3 is the worst SPD candidate image ever a state election.
When asked about the desired Prime Minister, the people in Hesse were clearly in favor of the incumbent Rhein.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
