A new state parliament will be elected in Lower Saxony on October 9th. SPD Prime Minister Stephan Weil leads in election polls just ahead of his CDU coalition partner Bernd Althusmann. There will probably not be a new Gro-Ko. All news about the Lower Saxony elections in the Newsticker.
Thursday, October 06, 2022, 8:41 a.m .: Ex-Prime Minister Gerhard Glogowski (SPD) hopes that the grand coalition in Lower Saxony will end soon. “I think it’s quite good if the CDU goes back into opposition,” said the 79-year-old of the German Press Agency. He constantly looks at polls and suffers or rejoices with the SPD.
“It’s looking pretty good at the moment, I’m happy about that,” he said, referring to polls before the election on Sunday, which often see the Social Democrats ahead. “If the CDU governs again, I will endure it as a democrat,” said Glogowski.
Under Gerhard Schröder, he was the interior minister and deputy prime minister. However, he only remained head of government for a short time: around a year after taking office, he resigned in 1999 after allegations of financial privileges from companies. Today he is part of a “traffic light family”: He himself is still a member of the SPD, his son is active in local politics for the Greens and his wife is a member of the Bundestag for the FDP.
2:29 p.m .: Before the state elections in Lower Saxony on Sunday, the CDU chairman Friedrich Merz accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) of leadership weakness. Merz said on Wednesday at an election campaign event in the Diepholz district that Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) had been arguing publicly for weeks. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is not just a problem for these two, it is a problem for the Chancellor,” said Merz. “You can’t run a government that way.” The CDU chairman said that as Chancellor he would not have allowed that.
At the event, Merz warned that a poor design of the energy price brake could lead to a legitimacy problem for the federal government and could also fall back on politics in general. “Then everyone will point the finger at us and say: They are not even able to solve such a problem.” At the end of September, the traffic light coalition announced a new “defense shield” of up to 200 billion euros to protect consumers and to prop up businesses because of rising energy prices. The opposition leader in the Bundestag offered the federal government his cooperation on the energy price brake. “I don’t want any partisan arguments at this point,” said Merz.
Wednesday, October 5th, 2022, 8:51 a.m .: Before the state elections in Lower Saxony, Die Linke is promoting the introduction of a state-wide 365-euro ticket for local transport. The parliamentary group will submit a corresponding application in the first 100 days after the election if it succeeds in entering the state parliament on Sunday, according to a ten-point program available to the German Press Agency. According to this, the 365-euro ticket should be a first step “towards free local public transport”.
The program also includes calling for an additional holiday on March 8, International Women’s Day, “as a feminist sign and to reduce working hours”, hiring at least 1000 additional teachers by February 1, 2023, annual investment in the hospitals of at least 250 million euros and a ban on power cuts.
In some points, the left is in line with campaign promises made by the SPD and the Greens, such as the establishment of a Lower Saxony fund for more public investment, the increase in salaries for primary, secondary and secondary school teachers or the establishment of a state-owned housing association. The aim is to promote the ten-point program to the SPD and Greens from within the opposition, according to the left. On Wednesday (2:00 p.m.), the leader of the Bundestag parliamentary group, Dietmar Bartsch, and the top candidates Jessica Kaußen and Lars Leopold want to present the details in Hanover.
According to the latest polls, the left would fail at the five percent hurdle with 3 to 4 percent. So far, she was only represented in the Lower Saxony state parliament from 2008 to 2013.
10:03 p.m .: CDU party leader Friedrich Merz emphasized the importance of the state elections in Lower Saxony on Sunday for federal politics. Especially in energy and immigration policy, it is important that there is a change of power in Hanover, Merz said on Tuesday evening. At an event at Seevetal Castle in the Harburg district, he warned against voting for the AfD: “I don’t want issues like immigration, integration and asylum falling into the wrong hands.”
He could only ask the federal government not to open the floodgates to an unregulated immigration policy. The CDU also wanted a regulated immigration policy and not an unregulated one in the German social systems. So the citizen money is the entry into an unconditional basic income.
Lower Saxony’s CDU top candidate, Bernd Althusmann, promised 350 visitors in his constituency that, as Prime Minister, he would ensure that Lower Saxony voted against the citizens’ allowance in the Bundesrat. “Those who work must have more in their pockets than those who don’t work,” said the Economics Minister, who wants to replace Stephan Weil (SPD) as head of government in the state elections on October 9th.
Althusmann announced fierce resistance to the Alpha-E variant of the railway project in the Bremen-Hamburg-Hanover triangle: “We will not allow any new routes along the A7.” Cross-state, the landscape should not be overdeveloped.
The SPD and CDU are currently governing in a grand coalition in Lower Saxony. A continuation of the alliance is considered unlikely. In the 2017 election, the SPD was the strongest party with 36.9 percent, followed by the CDU (33.6 percent), the Greens (8.7 percent), the FDP (7.5 percent) and the AfD (6.2 percent).
5:34 p.m .: A few days before the state elections in Lower Saxony, the SPD is ahead of the CDU, according to a new survey. This is the result of a survey by the opinion research institute Insa for the “Bild” newspaper (Wednesday).
According to this, the SPD with Prime Minister Stephan Weil would have 31 percent and the CDU with challenger Bernd Althusmann only 28 percent. The Greens would come in third with 16 percent, followed by the AfD with 11 percent. The FDP would have to worry about staying in the state parliament with 5 percent, the left would miss the return with 4 percent. The election will take place this Sunday (October 9th).
The SPD and CDU are currently governing in a grand coalition in Lower Saxony. In the 2017 election, the SPD (36.9 percent) became the strongest force, followed by the CDU (33.6 percent), the Greens (8.7 percent), the FDP (7.5 percent) and the AfD (6.2 percent). . The Left had failed at the five percent hurdle with 4.6 percent.
Election polls are generally subject to uncertainties. Among other things, declining party ties and increasingly short-term voting decisions make it difficult for the opinion research institutes to weight the data they collect. In principle, surveys only reflect the opinion at the time of the survey and are not a forecast for the outcome of the election.
You can read older news about the Lower Saxony elections on the next page
