(Chronicler's; 09-03; p.3)
Detailed analysis of the election is available
from opinion poll and election research institutes Infratest
Dimap as well as Forschungsgruppe
Wahlen.
Both verify the thesis of the CSU's lead concerning home affairs
topics in all electorate's groups: the CSU is thought of as more
competent than the SPD in economic, social, security and education
policies by all groups subdivided by age, sex, social status and
confession. Having said this, it must be mentioned as well that
up to one third of the people asked did not clearly prefer one
party.
The conclusion that the CSU won the election
because the party successfully mobilised its core voters, while
SPD-voters this time made a different choice or stayed simply
at home (or on the Wies'n) thus is not only plausible but backed
empirically.
The SPD's result by the way is the lowest ever reached since the
Bavarian parliament has been established in 1946.
The Greens in Bavaria obviously have gained
a ecologically orientated core-electorate: it is the only topic
in which a party got a lead over the CSU.
The FDP on the other hand cannot score either
by economic or by political liberalism: the CSU already pursues
an company-friendly policy which as might be acknowledged is supplemented
with the catholic thinking on social policy and in contrast to
political liberalism even a nationalish, authoritarian policy
of the Republikaner-breed is preferred.
Effects?
The political effects on Germany are difficult
to assess in the short run. On the one hand the Bavarian parliament
stands for about 12 million inhabitants and the state has changed
from being a recipient of federal transfer money to a contributor.
(One characteristic of Germany's federalism is that states which
have tax revenues above average have to contribute to a fund for
states that have revenues below average. The intention of this
mechanism is stipulated in the German constitution, the Basic
Law, in various Articles; perhaps the most important of them are
Article 20 and Article 3 defining Germany as a federal and social
state and denying discrimination before the law e.g. for reasons
of place of residence, respectively.)
- Bavaria's previous disadvantage of a less industrialised state
has become an advantage after the demise of the heavy industries
so that the state gives a benchmark for Germany in respect to
unemployment: the quota is about seven percent.
Transforming a state that has been formed by the heavy industries
thus far had not been a task for Bavarian minister-presidents.
The only secure assertion therefore seems to be that the CSU will
demand more power in the balance with her sister party, the CDU.
(end of article)