Stuttgart. On Sunday, Baden-Württemberg elected a new state parliament. The southern German state was meant to mark the start of a super election year with five state elections and three local ballots. For the CDU in particular, it was supposed to launch a hoped-for series of victories. As it turned out, Manuel Hagel’s poor result was largely self-inflicted. The CDU demonstrated with remarkable skill how to lose an election that had almost been considered safe.
Only five months ago, the CDU’s lead candidate in Baden-Württemberg held a 15-point lead over his rival Cem Özdemir of the Greens. The former Green Party leader and agriculture minister had seemed destined to lose. Besides the CDU, the AfD was widely expected to be among the election’s winners. Everyone else, it was assumed, would lose ground.
A Tragic Figure
Manuel Hagel nevertheless managed to emerge from this situation as the tragic loser of the election. Considerable ineptitude was required to squander such an advantage. The recipe for losing the race, however, was fairly simple. First, present a candidate who does little more than embody the image of the perfect son-in-law. Hagel showed no clear policy profile, offered no distinct vision for the state and failed to distance himself from the federal chancellor where it might have been necessary. Instead, he conducted a campaign focused on the ‘firewall’ against the AfD, attacking it with vigour even though it was not a real competitor for power.
Meanwhile, his main opponent, Green candidate Cem Özdemir, was treated with kid gloves. Hagel repeatedly emphasised how pleasant Özdemir was as a person. At the national level he also resisted any effort to sharpen the CDU’s environmental or climate policy profile by watering down party conference motions. Such a stance might have distinguished the party from the Greens, but Hagel was careful not to offend them.
