For most of the postwar period, the state of Baden-Württemberg was both a bastion of German conservatism and – as the home of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche – an economic powerhouse. But in volatile times, even regions that embodied political stability and industrial prowess now deliver the unexpected. A come-from-behind victory for the Greens last Sunday, in the first of a series of important regional elections this year, suggests that Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrat-led national government is alienating voters in the same way as other centrist administrations in Europe. If Sir Keir Starmer has Gorton and Denton to anguish over, Mr Merz and his Social Democrat coalition partners now have Baden-Württemberg.
Caveats apply. The Greens already had an impressive power base in Germany’s third-largest state, where they have been the senior partner in coalition administrations for 15 years. In Cem Özdemir, their victorious candidate, they also fielded a charismatic and popular campaigner. Mr Özdemir’s personal achievement is in itself a cause for celebration. The son of immigrants who arrived in the country in the 1960s, he becomes Germany’s first state premier with Turkish roots.
