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.
12:19 p.m .: One week before the state elections in Lower Saxony, the FDP breaks away from the CDU and campaigns aggressively for second votes in the middle-class camp. “Bernd Althusmann will not become prime minister. I even think it is very likely that the CDU will leave the state government,” said the Secretary General of the state FDP, Konstantin Kuhle, on Friday of the German Press Agency in Berlin.
“Now the question is which government coalition in Lower Saxony will take over the design,” Kuhle continued. “I realize that there are many people who, in this difficult situation, would like a voice for economic reason, for a sound financial policy, against cold progression, for a certain pragmatism in energy policy. You have to tell these people that every vote for the CDU is a vote that ends up in the opposition.” Therefore: “Now it’s the second vote for the FDP that matters.”
Kuhle referred to the ZDF “Politbarometer” from Friday, in which Prime Minister Stephan Weil’s SPD is 32 percent and the CDU under its top candidate Bernd Althusmann is 27 percent. The Greens get 16 percent. With 5 percent, the FDP has to worry about returning to the state parliament. However, Kuhle assumes that the Liberals will get over the five percent hurdle.
“The question now is: Does Lower Saxony get a left-wing state government or does it get a state government from the center,” said Kuhle, who is also vice-chairman of the FDP parliamentary group. According to the latest survey, it is enough for red-green. But: “Lower Saxony is a state of narrow majorities. It is not certain that Red-Green will get a majority. That can happen. But a vote for the CDU cannot change that.”
Friday, September 26, 2022, 7:32 a.m .: According to a new survey, the SPD around Prime Minister Stephan Weil is still just ahead of the CDU a few days before the state elections in Lower Saxony. In the ARD pre-election poll published on Thursday evening, the Social Democrats came to 32 percent, the coalition partner CDU with Weil challenger Bernd Althusmann to 30 percent. The SPD thus remains at the level of the previous week, while the CDU can gain two percentage points.
According to the figures, the Greens lose one percentage point and come to 16 percent, the FDP still has to worry about entering the state parliament with 5 percent. The AfD remains unchanged at 9 percent, the left would not move into the state parliament with 3 percent.
The state election is on October 9th. 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 with 36.9 percent, followed by the CDU (33.6 percent), Greens (8.7), FDP (7.5) and AfD (6.2 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 collected. In principle, surveys only reflect the opinion at the time of the survey and are not a forecast of the outcome of the election.
Monday, September 26, 2022, 10:10 a.m.: Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil is demanding that the federal government effectively curb the sharp rise in energy prices in the coming weeks. “I expect the gas price cap to be in place in October,” Weil told the “Bild am Sonntag” newspaper. The price cap for gas – and also for electricity – should apply to both private households and the economy, he said.
In addition, Weil called for an effective “bundle of aid programs like Corona”. It is clear that this will cost money, so much so that the debt brake will not be able to be complied with. “But if we let the companies go bankrupt, it will end up being very bitter for many and much more expensive for the public purse.”
The debt brake anchored in the Basic Law stipulates that the federal and state governments must always balance their budgets without loans. Above all, Finance Minister Christian Lindner and his FDP insist on strict compliance with the rule, which was suspended for three years in the federal government due to Corona, from 2023.
Weil, who is applying for a third term in the state elections on October 9, referred to the time pressure for citizens in this country: “Most private contracts with suppliers run until the end of the year, people need clarity quickly.”
Thursday, September 22, 2022, 7:45 a.m.: A good two weeks before the state elections in Lower Saxony, the SPD is still ahead of its current coalition partner, the CDU, in a survey. If elected on Sunday, the Social Democrats would get 32 percent of the votes, according to a new study by the opinion research institute infratest dimap commissioned by NDR. The SPD rose in favor with voters by one percentage point compared to the same survey in August, as did the CDU, which would therefore come to 28 percent. In Lower Saxony there will be elections on Sunday, October 9th.
The Greens lose two percentage points and would come to 17 percent. The FDP would just about make it into the state parliament with 5 percent (minus 1), the AfD improved by two percentage points to 9 percent. The left would not be represented in the state parliament with 4 percent (unchanged).
This would allow the existing grand coalition of SPD and CDU to continue. However, this is considered unlikely, since Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) is campaigning aggressively for a new edition of red-green. After the 2013 election, Weil led a red-green coalition, although the SPD was more than three percentage points behind the CDU at the time. More than 1,000 eligible voters were interviewed for the representative survey, as reported by the NDR on Thursday.
Wednesday, September 21, 2022, 11:50 a.m .: The Lower Saxony FDP top candidate Stefan Birkner is relaxed about conducting an election campaign against the policies of his brother-in-law, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck from the Greens. “In the political debate he has his role, I have my role. That’s a professional approach,” said the FDP state and parliamentary group leader to the “Spiegel”. “That’s why I don’t hold back from criticizing his policies as Federal Minister of Economics and he probably doesn’t do it either when it comes to my positions.” In Lower Saxony, a new state parliament will be elected on October 9th. In the 2017 election, the FDP achieved 7.5 percent of the votes.
According to the report, the wife of FDP man Birkner is the sister of the wife of the Federal Minister of Economics, so the relationship as a brother-in-law has existed for 26 years. “Regardless of the fact that Robert Habeck and I are related by marriage, know and appreciate each other, I just think it’s good policy in politics not to attack and hurt each other personally. I want to continue to do it that way, including when dealing with Robert Habeck,” stressed Birkner.
The FDP man criticized Habeck’s plan not to take the plant in Lingen, Lower Saxony, out of the three remaining nuclear power plants in Germany as a reserve for the coming winter. “In this phase, when energy prices are rising and we are reducing our dependency on Russian gas, we still need the three remaining nuclear power plants in Germany to be connected to the grid – including the one in Lingen in Lower Saxony.” Birkner did not rule out Habeck’s nuclear reserve plan could reconsider.
