The Social Democrats got about 44 percent of the vote, almost enough to rule with an absolute majority. The local SPD led by Anke Rehlinger, who is likely to become prime minister, was able to gain almost 15 percent. It led to sustained cheers at her election party in Saarbrücken.
Prime Minister Tobias Hans, who loses his position, had to be checked. His Christian Democratic CDU lost nearly 13 percent of the vote to 28.5 percent. With 4.9 and 4.8 percent of the votes respectively, the Greens and the FDP did not reach the electoral threshold and therefore do not enter the Diet.
The patriotic AfD succeeded. The party lost slightly and gained about 5.5 percent. Die Linke, who flew out of parliament, scored the lowest, especially because their former prime minister Oscar Lafontaine, once treasury keeper in Berlin, angrily left his socialist party a week ago.
For the newlywed conservative party chairman and opposition leader Friedrich Merz, the polls in the Saarland are a disaster, a ‘de-Saar star’, according to critics. This nemesis of ex-chancellor Angela Merkel had just conquered the CDU, but has not yet turned out to be a popular list pusher. During the war in Ukraine, the Germans reward the ruling party SPD with extra votes.
