In the regional elections last weekend in two German states, German farmers still voted widely for the CDU of Chancellor Angela Merkel, but less than four years ago.
German farmers in southwestern Germany still choose the Christian Democrats at twice the average rate, but are increasingly turning to parties on the political fringes.
In Baden-Württemberg and Rheinland-Pfalz, farmers voted 55% and 56% for the CDU respectively, compared to averages of 24.1 and 27.7 percent. Among other professions such as civil servants, shopkeepers, or workers, the differences are much smaller.
In Baden-Württemberg, it is also striking that one in ten farmers votes for the far-right AfD, one in ten for the left-wing SPD, and two in ten choose the Greens.
After the two elections, one thing is clear: the CDU is indeed performing worse than four years ago, as expected. There are three reasons for this: if you want green policies, you choose the original, not the CDU. Voters who want to be bourgeois and economically liberal are increasingly choosing the FDP (Baden-Württemberg) or Free Voters (Rhineland-Palatinate). Germans who want to continue Angela Merkel's course choose the CDU. Only, there are fewer and fewer of them…
The poor election results have reignited discussion within the CDU about the direction and succession of Merkel: centrist approach or center-right. The 'grand coalition' with the left-wing SPD is not popular among all CDU voters.
Last year, Armin Laschet (59) became CDU party chairman; he is Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia and belongs to the liberal wing of the CDU. Due to these poor election results, it is uncertain whether the CDU can later this year put him forward as the new chancellor, or whether there will be an SPD-FDP-Green coalition.
The election results will no doubt also be addressed on Wednesday at the conference of Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner (CDU) with the regional agriculture ministers of the sixteen German states. In Germany, a large part of national agricultural policy has been delegated to the states. In half of the states, there is no CDU representative in agriculture. This makes it highly uncertain whether Klöckner will be able to modernize the German agricultural law before the national elections.