In Lower Saxony, the FDP is threatened with catastrophe: the Liberals are currently at 4.9 percent and are concerned about remaining in the state parliament. They see the cause in the weak performance of the traffic light coalition and are building up significant pressure.
No mercy for the liberals. As if nerves hadn't been on edge enough in North Rhine-Westphalia in May, until in the course of the evening it was finally reliably established that the Liberals had just barely made it into the state parliament. Five months later, it gets even worse: the first two projections of the evening by Infratest Dimap show the FDP in Lower Saxony at five percent, i.e. just barely represented in the state parliament. From the third extrapolation it is no longer enough - 4.9 at first, then 4.8.
The bad result is not surprising. According to his own statement, FDP deputy leader Wolfgang Kubicki had already noticed during the Lower Saxony election campaign that the electorate "still feels strange about the traffic lights in Berlin", and also about the role of the FDP in it.
In four state elections this year, the Free Democrats received a good deal: in Saarland they again failed to make it into the state parliament, in North Rhine-Westphalia they were kicked out of the government, and in Schleswig-Holstein, where they halved their 2017 result, the same. With the Lower Saxony elections, the last state elections this year, the FDP has only suffered defeats.
The traffic light started promisingly for the federal Liberals when it started in December. The FDP was able to push through all the main demands: the speed limit, which was so important for the Greens, was averted, new social spending was kept within limits and party leader Christian Lindner grabbed his dream department as future finance minister. The signal: Here the party leader himself ensures that the debt brake is reliably adhered to, a central position of the Liberals.
But then came the Russian attack on Ukraine, then came the energy crisis and inflation, and even if Lindner was able to comply with the debt brake anchored in the Basic Law on paper, the Bundestag in 2022 decided on the highest new debts in the history of the Federal Republic - alone the 100 "turning point" - Billions for the Bundeswehr, then the "double boom" of 200 billion for the Economic Stabilization Fund. The respective "special fund" was called, runs past the federal budget, but in the end means quite simply: further debts. Most Germans, including the FDP clientele, will probably judge it the same way.
Christian Lindner initially opposed the financing of aid programs several times, a position that FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr called "careful on the edge of the platform" on ARD. But the voters apparently do not appreciate this caution. The position as finance minister should make Lindner the guarantor of a liberal financial policy, now it forces him to sell the record debts himself in the Bundestag.
The ministries, which, on the other hand, can visibly act constructively in the crisis for the population, are in the hands of the Greens: Annalena Baerbock as Foreign Minister and Robert Habeck in the Ministry of Economic Affairs at least have the chance to make a name for themselves, even if the failed gas levy has given Habeck noticeable support of the population costs. FDP politician Volker Wissing as Transport Minister remains colorless beyond the nine-euro ticket.
"We have to mark our position at the traffic lights more clearly," says Kubicki. But it should also be noted that in the situations in which the FDP has so far clearly marked its position - for example in the easing of corona policy and the rejection of compulsory vaccination - it has not been able to benefit from it.
So far, the Liberals have not been able to get their way through the traffic lights on the subject of nuclear power. The demand to significantly extend the lifespan of the last nuclear power plants is backed up by the liberals at every opportunity. But Economics Minister Habeck has so far only announced that two power plants will continue to operate until 2023. The decisive factor for the liberal clientele is presumably not what the FDP would do if they could, but that they are unable to assert their position.
In general, the expectations of the liberal supporters are primarily aimed at a policy that would have to set different accents in economic and energy policy. And not only the expectations of the supporters, but also the party members are formulating it increasingly clearly that, from their point of view, too little or the wrong thing is coming from Berlin: A district association from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania recently distanced itself from federal politics and called the economic policy "catastrophic". The FDP lost 25,000 former voters in Lower Saxony to the CDU and even 40,000 to the AfD.
With such dissatisfaction at the grassroots level, how should the party leader's involvement in the Lower Saxony election campaign turn the tide? Too many compromises from the point of view of the liberal supporters, too little FDP policy in the crisis. It is better in a government to ensure "that the country stays in the middle than to observe in the opposition how a country is being led to the left," said Christian Lindner during the election campaign in Lower Saxony. As a reason for remaining in the traffic light coalition, the motivation is extremely weak.
In short: the FDP urgently needs successes, and those Liberals who sit in the cabinet rounds and the coalition committee must push them through. It could be correspondingly uncomfortable there in the coming days, General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai built up significant pressure on Sunday evening.
It cannot be the case that one or two coalition partners "constantly" distinguish themselves at the expense of the other coalition partner," he said in the "Berlin Round" of ARD and called on the coalition partners to now decide to extend the life of the nuclear power plants. Should it be in winter If there were problems with the energy supply, this would otherwise be associated with the face of Federal Minister of Economics Habeck.
A success in the nuclear conflict is probably the least that the FDP now needs in order to achieve visible success and have a chance of breaking out of its negative spiral. It sounds paradoxical at first, but the FDP's chain of failures in polls and state elections must strengthen its position in the Berlin traffic lights. Because anything else would seriously jeopardize the continued existence of the governing coalition. The lifetime extension for nuclear power plants in Germany has become a lot more likely with the defeat in Lower Saxony.
