Friedrich Merz’s center-right CDU faces regional elections on Sunday, the first of several this year in which it hopes to curb the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Voters will go to the polls in Baden-Württemberg, a prosperous center of Germany’s automotive sector with a population of 11.2 million. A year after winning the national elections, the CDU aims to take first place in the southwestern state from the Greens, who won the last two state elections.
Merz’s party until recently enjoyed a large lead in polls in the state, but this has narrowed in recent months. The latest poll places the CDU and the Greens tied at 28%.
Leading the CDU in the elections is Manuel Hagel, 37, a former bank branch manager whose campaign hit a rough patch over comments he made about female students during a school visit in 2018, which were considered sexist and inappropriate. He has since apologized for the comments.
The Greens’ leading candidate is Cem Özdemir, 60, who, if he wins, would become the first German prime minister of Turkish descent.
The AfD has gained 18% in the polls, which would be a record score for the anti-immigration party in Baden-Württemberg, but is still below its national rating of around 25%, similar to that of the CDU.
On Friday, Merz attended the CDU’s final campaign rally and said the vote would be watched outside Germany by people asking: “Is the CDU still capable of winning elections, even being in government at such a turbulent time?”
A poor result in the state, traditionally a CDU stronghold, would be an inauspicious start for Merz’s party in a year of regional votes in which it hopes its tougher immigration policy will win back AfD voters.
On March 22, their goal will be to defeat the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate. A series of regional votes will be held in former communist East Germany in September, in which the AfD can hope to do well.
Baden-Württemberg is home to some of the biggest names in Germany’s important but ailing automobile industry, including Porsche and Mercedes-Benz. Like other sectors in Germany, the automotive industry has been struggling with challenges ranging from high energy prices to increased competition from China.
Brian Fuerderer, 34, director of a local company that makes surgical equipment, told Agence France-Presse that he found the election campaign “weak.” He said the sides were “avoiding the most essential issue… the economy,” as well as the country’s dependence on foreign energy supplies, highlighted by the Middle East war.
Merz says boosting Germany’s moribund economy is his priority and has pressed the EU to weaken its ban on new combustion engine cars after 2035. Even the Greens’ Özdemir has said there should be more flexibility in the transition to electric vehicles.
Özdemir has a national profile in Germany. He became one of the first deputies of Turkish origin in 1994 and was Minister of Agriculture during the government of Olaf Scholz, former SPD chancellor.
If the Greens win on Sunday, Özdemir will replace party colleague Winfried Kretschmann, 77, who has led Baden-Württemberg for 15 years, as state premier.
Özdemir comes from the “realist” wing of the Greens and has signaled his distance from the more leftist factions of his party. Hans Christian, a 44-year-old businessman, told AFP that Özdemir projected a practical personality that appealed to voters in Baden-Württemberg.
“People think that at times like this it is important for the state chief minister to have experience,” he said. “That has strengthened the Greens, because Mr Özdemir simply has more life experience.”
Markus Frohnmaier, the AfD’s leading candidate, has attracted national attention for his ties to Russia and Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.
He recently published in X about a poll that gave the party 20% in Baden-Württemberg. Such a result would be “sensational” for the party, he said, and the best result it had achieved in a western German state.
