“This will unsettle the Ampel coalition,” says Stefan Marschall of Düsseldorf University, referring to the “traffic-light” alliance Mr Scholz heads at the federal level of the spd, fdp and Greens. The Greens will be even more self-confident after such success in two state elections. And the fdp is likely to be more prickly, after faring poorly twice in a row. As for Mr Scholz, his authority at the head of his unwieldy coalition is certain to have been dented. Some analysts are already referring to him as a one-term chancellor.
The Greens have been the great beneficiaries of the Ampel alliance. Annalena Baerbock, the Green foreign minister, and Robert Habeck, the Green economy minister and vice-chancellor, are more popular than either Mr Scholz or Christian Lindner, the finance minister, who is leader of the fdp. Yet the Greens’ jubilation about their success in nrw has been muted. “They understand the explosive power of the election result,” says Klaus Schubert of Münster University. The coalition needs to benefit all three parties if it is to hold together.
Mr Lindner, who hails from nrw and led the local fdp at state elections there in 2012 and 2017, said the result was a “disastrous defeat” for his party. For a while the fdp even worried that it might not win 5% of the vote, the hurdle that must be crossed to secure any seats in the state parliament at all. The party has been the junior partner in Mr Wüst’s governing coalition. But Joachim Stamp, the local fdp leader, failed to excite voters.
The Greens are now the kingmakers in nrw, since the cdu and fdp no longer have enough seats to continue their governing alliance. They could join forces with the spd and the fdp for a local version of the national Ampel coalition; or form a red-green government. Yet most observers expect the Greens will team up with the cdu, again the largest party in the state. Hessen and Baden-Württemberg are both run by cdu-Green coalitions—and Schleswig-Holstein may be about to get one, says Frank Decker of Bonn University. The least likely potential government is a grand coalition of the battered spd and the cdu. Both parties have signalled little interest in such a combo. ■