00:00On what to expect, then, we're going to cross now to Oliver Lembke, Professor of Political Science at Ruhr University in Borum.
00:07Thank you very much for joining us today, Professor.
00:10So these are local elections, of course, but what are the top issues that are driving voters to the polls?
00:15And to what extent are they similar to federal elections?
00:21Yeah, we see a back to Brett and Baschka issues, I would say.
00:25Last local elections, five years ago, there was a lot of talk about climate change and also sustainability policies.
00:34But here we see something like commuting, renting, housing, quality of life.
00:40So the basic issues, so to say, these topics play an important role and makes this local election, yeah, like you said, it's a barometer for the federal government.
00:50So what do you think, Professor, explains that shift then from, you know, climate issues?
00:55I don't know how to describe that because, I mean, it is an essential issue, of course.
00:59But why that shift from more kind of large-scale macro issues to more everyday bread and butter, as you say, matters in these elections?
01:09First of all, these are better fitting for local politics because most of these issues are decided on a local level.
01:19So it is, in many ways, also sort of a strengthening of the real approach to politics on a local level, first.
01:29But secondly, it has also been, you know, resonating with a shift in general.
01:33It's a shift that also led the two parties, the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats, to the coalition, to sort of a victory of both parties in February.
01:45So I would say this shift of topics on the local level reflects also a shift in a general way in German society.
01:53Now, Friedrich Merz's support has been relatively low since he took office.
01:59I mean, he's not a particularly popular chancellor, it sounds like.
02:03And polls do indeed suggest that his coalition is expected to lose support in these elections.
02:09In general, I would say because they simply have not delivered.
02:23They overpromised during the election campaigns, but they have failed to convince their voters and supporters during the first months of their government.
02:31And this is also reflected in the poor polling, like you said.
02:35And now it's the opportunity for expressing this dissatisfaction.
02:40Generally, there's also a trend going on, which, to be fair, so to say, has not taken place only in the last election, but also for a longer time.
02:51Big parties are shrinking and the smaller ones are growing.
02:54And this has a lot to do with the traditional milieus that are eroding and party loyalties that are dissolving.
03:00But in general, this is also an expression of the loss of trust in the governing parties and the traditional parties of the democratic center.
03:10And this loss of trust benefits, of course, right-wing and left-wing parties.
03:15I mean, the expectation, of course, is that, or at least that's what attention is being on, how the AFD will perform in these elections.
03:23You say that this loss of trust in mainstream parties benefits both the far right and the far left.
03:28But we tend to hear more when it comes to Germany, quite frankly, about it benefiting the far right.
03:33As for these local elections, then, in North Rhine-Westphalia, is there a far left to speak of that is also being able to seize upon distrust with the mainstream parties?
03:42The talk is about the far right.
03:47You're correct about it.
03:48The far left, so to say, is more or less cannibalizing successfully, you can say, the Greens.
03:55But the parties in power, the Christian and the Social Democrats, they are attacked by the far right.
04:00That's true.
04:01And the lack of trust plays an important role for that.
04:04And I think the AFD was also successful in, you know, creating itself or an impression of itself as a residence chamber for dissatisfaction.
04:14It's fueled by the fears of decline in general.
04:18Everything is going down in Germany, but also personally the fear that your own future is not bright but dark.
04:24The AFD has, of course, also historically done better in eastern Germany, but there has been a gradual shift to the right in much of the West as well.
04:34Do you expect these elections to confirm that trend?
04:38Yes, I do.
04:39I would say that already the recent election, the federal elections in February, showed that the AFD was successful in penetrating the strongholds of the Social Democrats, especially in bigger cities, with social hotspots.
04:54But that's not the only story.
04:55That's an important story.
04:56And everybody was, so to say, aware of it with cities like Gelsenkirchen or Duisburg.
05:02But that's not the whole story.
05:04I think you can expect the AFD also to gain in a broader sense.
05:09And that means they are benefiting from the growing rural-urban divide.
05:14And they become, like in the East, here also in the West, a voice of the disadvantaged areas.
05:22And this is something that's comparable.
05:24We have seen it in the East on a much larger scale, but now we see, so to say, a movement to the West and also sustainable successes for the AFD here in the West part of Germany.
05:34What is some of the discontent do you think the AFD does a better job at responding to when it comes to, for example, Western Germany in particular, that mainstream parties have still been unable to convince voters of?
05:47And how does that play out, since these are local elections, on a local level?
05:51The funny thing is that there are not too many candidates of the AFD actually at the ballot.
06:03So it's more about the program, but the program is not about local issues in many ways.
06:10It's about the dissatisfaction with the governing parties for a longer time.
06:14It's not about protests in one election.
06:18It's about an ongoing dissatisfaction that is growing, growing in terms of the democracy and the performance of democracy in general.
06:28And voters that are attracted by the AFD see this, if I may say so, basic functions of the state not fulfilled anymore.
06:36And these ordinary issues of the ordinary life, daily life, so to say, the politicians, in their view, are not capable of solving these issues.
06:47It has also a lot to do with the migration topic that was the wave of the migration that was on the agenda since 2015.
06:55But now you can see that a lot of issues have become local issues in the consequence of this migration wave in terms of failed integration policies.
07:05And people are more or less fed up with these problems that you see in terms of security or what have you.
07:13And these problems need to be solved, need to be addressed.
07:16And the two parties, especially the Social Democrats, have failed to address them convincingly.
07:21And this is why at least elements of the core electorate is now at stake.
07:26Professor Oliver Lemke, I'm so sorry to cut you off, but unfortunately we are very tight for time.
07:32Thank you so much for coming on today.
