Results of the 2024 state elections in Saxony and Thuringia, (election overview)

we now have the full and final results for the elections in both Saxony and in Thia and in this video I want to take a look at the raw numbers to see what each party got and also contrasted to both what the polls were saying and what the 2019 results were and this is going to be kind of a general overview of both States and tomorrow and Tuesday I will do another video taking a deeper look into the numbers in each state maybe talking about the demographic differences with age and different work groups and see how the states voted and also talk more about the Coalition formations what governments can be formed after this but this is going to be kind of a en overview of the basics in in each state now that we have the full kind of finalized numbers after all the votes have been counted and all the seats have been properly distributed now we're going to start with the state of thoria and in the state of Thia we had a very big victory for the afd they won their first state election ever and this was a big milestone for the party the left Dinka and the greens have both been able to achieve that Dinka and Thia and the greens and B W Brook so now the afd is another party outside of the CDU and SPD one of the kind of third parties if you will that has managed to win a state on their own now the afd has won States within Federal elections or european parliamentary elections where the largest party within a state at a federalwide election however this is the first time they've won a state at a Statewide election at lantv and they have won 32.8% going up nine points from the 23.4 they got in the last election so pretty much a 10-point swing from their previous result which was already a huge increase so not only did they win with over 30% of the vote they had a a 10-point lead over the CDU which was behind them in second place so this is a big victory a big milestone for the afd but also a very important victory for bu hooka the leader of the party in this state who is a very very um well-known figure in German politics very controversial in Germany but also very well known in the party and so this will be a victory for him and his Branch but also the afd federally because this will be covered in Germany and the whole country will of course see this result now the result for the CDU is not a bad result the CDU went from 21 7 up two points to around 23.6 so some slight increases of course Mario Mario folk the leader of the CDU has positioned himself as a main candidate against the afd he wants to become governor and so these increases do help them he has kind of solidified his position the CDU is very stable they did not increase by a lot but they were able to you know at least make some gains which is very contrary to other places where the CDU has suffered some losses especially of course in Eastern Germany now the result for the CDU historically speaking is not that great the CDU in the past has been able to get 30 40 even winning an absolute majority however times have changed and of course now that we have a bunch of different political parties competing instead of just the CDU SPD and maybe PDS that we had in the 90s or 2000s it's you know it's it's understandable that parties even that once were very strong are now able to only win around 20 30% and that's still a good result for them because we have a very more a much more divided political field than we did say 10 20 years ago so the standards for parties are of course a lot lower or standards for how much they can are expected to get rather's a lot lower so a very moderate result for the CDU they were able to increase their result some so it's going to be uh you know good number for them they also won second place which was not the case in 2019 they fell from first to third so they were able to retake second place but of course still being behind the afd but for government formation they might be in a good position the bsv alliance Sarah vagan next won 15.8% this was slightly less than what the polls were saying by a few points but nonetheless for a new party that was founded less than a year ago this is very important they not only crossed the 5% threshold to win seats but they also got over 10 15% and also they are the third largest party the bsv split away from Dinka and so for the fact that the bsv has beat Dinka shows that the it has effectively kind of become the main leftwing party in this state it is going to be able to challenge Dinka andd for the legit legitimacy of holding the position as the kind of leftwing populist party and this is very important for that identity crisis within the left that I've talked about in some of my videos so the bsv has managed to defeat Dinka and if you see the results for Dinka of course you can see of course it was catastrophic now the uh governor of the state is Bodo he is from Dinka he's the incumbent Governor he's still there until this new Parliament was sworn in and he was a very popular Governor his approval rating was high but dink as a party was suffering catastrophic problems and after the bsv split away that was basically you know unsalvageable and so Dinka despite B of ralo's popularity and his strength in the state the party has just so much you know baggage politically speaking so they have lost so they've suffered heavy losses now this 13.1% of course is a drop for them they dropped around 18 points from 31 to 13 so they suffered catastrophic losses however this is actually not the worst result for them because in other states are actually falling below 5% as we'll see in Saxony and it's actually the case that ramalo the fact that BTO ramlo is here actually saved them to keep you know keep them above 5% kept them at 133% if he had not been here this could have been even wor so of course when you look at it compared to 2019 it's a catastrophic disaster for Dinka but when you look at it compared to other states it's not a terrible result it is going from first to Fourth they are losing over two-thirds of their voters but they are still above 10% they are still represented in the state which is not a given and others so they this was you know okay result this was pretty much in line with what the polls were saying so nothing too shocking here the results for the SPD and greens are I mean pretty much all the results here were in line with what the polls were were saying uh in terms of the place each party got and the numbers there somewhat variation the bsv got a few points less the afd got you know a few points more the SPD got 6.1% of the vote this was a drop in two points this was their worst result in this state's history but also one of the worst results they've ever gotten any uh German state election since 1949 since the foundation of the federal republic so this was a bad result for them however they did manage to cross the 5% Mark so they are going to retain representation in the state legislature so considering that was it was a possibility they could fall below 5% this will be seen as you know an okay result for them but of course 6% is not where the SPD wants to be on the other hand the greens Dro two points and fell below the 5% threshold they lost all their seats in representation in the th Indian State Legislature and so of course this will be a bitter night for the party in this state you also have the fdp which was represented in 2019 uh 2019 where they won 5% re-entering the legislature dropped Four Points only winning 1% and of course will not gain any seats now the results of course a big victory for the afd a a moderate victory for the CDU the bsv has entered into the legislature for the first time they maybe wanted a bit more but considering they're our new party this is a victory for them so we see of course a victory for the afd the CDU and the bsv and a disastrous result for the left and the SPD ingredients were basically nowhere same with the fdp and this was actually similar to the results we've seen in hessen and in Bavaria the parties of the federal government the SPD greens and fdp are not gaining anything and they're still losing even from results in 2019 that were already very bad the Linka itself itself is suffering a lot of problems and so we see the parties that have kind of asserted themselves that the opposition to the federal government are doing very well the governing parties and then Dinka itself because of its internal problems or all suffering losses this is similar to what we saw in hessen and in Bavaria so we see three big winners all winning first second and third and then a drastic change in the landscape of course with Dinka ceasing to be a major dominant force in this state for the first time in you know decades now I want to take a look at the government formation for theia now there was one possible Coalition that was talked about even on the some of the German news channels some of the um German media and that was a coalition of the CDU the bsv and the SPD now there are a couple of problems with this but I first want to just look at the numbers obviously the afd is the largest party traditionally they would be the party to form a government however every party as of now has ruled out working with them and that is going to make forming a government very hard now the CDU can work with the aspd easily but they only have together 29 of the needed 45 seats the bsv is arguably more to the left of the CDU of the um of positions than the link is and maybe to the right on on others now the CDU and the left once cooperation between them was basically out of the question however in theingi has been become increasingly harder to form a government and so we had a minority government in power that was tolerated by the CDU and so cooperation between the CDU and the left or even the CDU and the bsv although it is very taboo unorthodox although it's very problematic and unstable it is become the reality in this state because it's so hard to form it's impossible to form a government otherwise and so one of the the possibilities was a coalition between the CDU the SPD and the bsv in the polls it was showing it a majority however in the final results they have fallen one C below and so what this means effectively is that the only um you also if you look at the Alterna cdpd and Dinka there is of course no majority there as well this means the only government with a majority that can be formed without the afd is a coalition of the CDU bsv and Dinka and of course this is has problems because this is not only the bsv working with the CDU which is a somewhat neoliberal center right party very atlanticist it's also working with Dinka which is similar to them on some issues and so this is the only choice that the parties have if they do not want to work with the afd and it's problems for all three ways the Dinka is not really on good terms with the the bsv and the Dinka and the CDU is just also not very you know it's not a practical logical Coalition so as we can see here forming a government is going to be very very difficult but we could even have you know snap elections it's not entirely out of the question that no government is formed and then the parliament dissolves itself when we have new elections that could happen but we will have to see so for this state as you can see the big result for the afd has made a government formation nearly impossible the afd and bsv could also form a government together that's not necessarily out come 100% out of the question although the bsv has rolled it out as of now things could change but the fact that the afd and bsv have one a majority shows that for the traditional Western oriented parties it is very hard for them to win or to you know hold a majority in these states in in the East and so that's going to be it for this state and I want to take a look now at the results for Saxony now if we take a look at Saxony it's a very different picture than in Thia um not too much different but there is of course some variation in the positions of the parties here and contrary to thring the CDU did manage to win and beat the afd so the afd did not win first place in Saxon they did win some support you know they did gain some but they were able they were still in second place the CDU won 31.9% of the vote a drop of only 0.2 so this is almost exactly what they got in 2019 and all things considered this was a big victory for them they were able to maintain their position as the largest party despite a surging afd so this will be seen as a victory by the CDU now I will suspect that a lot of the reason the CDU was able to M you know to remain so stable is because they are no longer in the federal government a lot of the negative results for the SPD the greens and the fdp are due to the fact that the they are part of the current federal government in Berlin which is very unpopular and during the Merkel era when the CDU was leading the federal government under Merkel as their Chancellor they were suffering results in state elections because of that negative influence from the federal politics so now that the CDU is in the opposition they don't have that but if we see in 2025 someone like friederick May's elected as the chancellor then this the problems facing Germany will start to rub off on these elections you will see there you will see an influence and if the CDU if a CDU Le federal government starts to have a lower and lower approval rating then the CDU will start to see you know the results uh reflect that in the Statewide elections as well so I think the fact that the CDU is in the federal opposition has helped them to maintain you know a solid result in a lot of these states also in hessen as we saw in 2023 now the result for the afd is interesting because it's not a big as big of a gain but it's almost online with what the result is in Thia and a part of that is because the afd in Saxony was a lot stronger than even the East German standard in Brandenburg in Thia and in Saxony andal they were all around 23 24% Saxony was the only state where they were nearing the 28% Mark so of course they were already very strong in 2019 but um so there was as much room for them to grow but nonetheless they did gain around three points going from 30.6 so they did cross three the 30% Mark that is a big chunk of the vote they are winning or you know a third of the seats in the legislature so despite the fact that they didn't win first place they did gain on off what was a already very strong result the bsv here did weaker than in theingi and also weaker than what the polls were showing when you're on 11.8% nonetheless like I said this is the first time they have contested these elections is a party list than a year old and them winning over 10% of the vote yet in 5 % is of course a big victory for them they're also the third largest party so they are ahead of all the other left wing parties and they can of course use that you know legitimize themselves as a new leftwing Force kind of a successor to Dinka representing the East German interest if they wanted to now the SPD suffered some losses here but of course the SPD was already very low so there wasn't really much change in the result this is not a good result for them they suffered losses on top of what was already historic lows and this is a state where you know you know 100 years ago the SPD was very strong and this is one of their Heartland States it does have a cultural significance to the SPD and the fact that they're not even you know competing here and the fact that they're having to fight to hold the 5% to get across the line to maintain representation is bad for the party now of course if they weren't part of the federal government they might be able to cross you know 9 10% but even there is not really a very strong result and that's not a given they they Lo the SBD has suffered losses when they were part of a junior partner in the coal ition and so it's not a given that once the Schultz government is replaced that there will be a surge for the SPD so of course a better result for them the greens as well only winning 5.1% they did suffer some losses here the greens had finally in around 2018 2019 been able to win and make gains in the eastern states and that is kind of receded you were seeing the greens win in the major cities but outside of that they are suffering in East Germany now what's interesting is the results for Dinka now Dinka won 4.5% they fell below the 5% threshold losing around half their votes and half their votes and around half their seats however Saxony has a caveat in the way the 5% threshold works and that is if a party wins two direct mandates two direct seats that party can enter into the legislature with proportional representation and Dinka and the greens were able to pull that off in leiping and Dresden the two big cities in Saxony there are a lot of seats that are very heavily supported by with with large voter groups for Dinka and the greens the greens won two direct mandates and Dinka won two direct mandates so although the left fell below the 5% threshold they won those two direct mandates and they were able to win seats proportionately but nonetheless they did suffer losses and it is also significant they fell below 5% because then they're relying on a you know backup plan to make you know get into the legislature you also had the free voters that lost some support the FR zon is a party to the right of the afd a kind of nationalist party but it's also regionalist it's only in sax and they got 2% and what's interesting is the of course the fdp is not even present here and the fdp got only 0.9% of the vote a bitter disaster for the fdp in this state and of course across East Germany in general and so overall the results victory for both the CDU and afd the CDU maintaining first place the afd winning support getting a big chunk of the vote the bsv as well and then you see the SPD greens the left the FDB just struggling losing on top of what we're already historically bad results of going nowhere not really being a major player in these elections at all now if we take a look at the formation of a government in Saxony of course it's a lot different uh it's much it's it's somewhat more easier but not too easy now the government of the CDU greens and SPD does not have a majority they were technically voted out of office but the CDU is the largest party they have the mandate to form a new government you could include D Link in it but that is already four parties I mean even if they were IDE ideologically similar that is going to be difficult dividing up the Ministries and positions to four different parties um there is the bsv as well but of course Sarah vag has spoken out against working with the greens so you could have a government of the S CDU SPD and the bsv here uh but even that is going to be difficult because it is not a given that the bsv will be able to work with the SPD or CDU and and that's just going to be something that has to be worked out over the next few weeks and months of course the afd is very strong if the bsv wanted to work with them well here is an instance where they actually couldn't uh form a they don't have a majority and there's no chance of really any of the other parties of course the afd and CDU could have work together there has been some people in the CDU that have spoken out and maybe wanted to work with the afd maybe not forming a government but maybe on some issues you know look at policy per policy or look at forming a minority government but even then that is still you know a minority within the CDU and it is very very unlikely that any cooperation with the afd will happen whether it be the CDU or the bsv so as we can see as it is in theia forming a government in Saxony will be difficult as well so of course that's going to be it for this video I hope everyone liked it and I will do some more on these results taking a deeper dive but this is kind of a general overview of the numbers kind of explaining what the results are what they meant and I'll do some more videos in the next few days and of course we will focus on now the Brandenburg elections see how maybe these results will affect that how the Coalition talks might affect Brandenburg and also we'll talk about the upcoming Austrian elections both the state and federal so that's going to be it for this video and I I hope everyone liked it if you do please like share subscribe and I'll see you all in the next one thank you for watching