What the election result means for three top Hessian politicians

The federal election represents a turning point in the careers of three top female politicians from Hesse. She has strong nerves, said Bettina Stark-Watzinger , the chairwoman of the Hesse FDP, when the fate of her party was still hanging in the balance on election night. However, the fifty-six-year-old economist from Bad Soden am Taunus had already resigned from her post as Federal Minister for Education and Research in the Scholz cabinet when the traffic light coalition collapsed in November. When it became clear that the Liberals had not cleared the five percent hurdle, Stark-Watzinger drew conclusions from this.

When the state party elects its new executive committee at the end of April, she will no longer be available as party leader after four years at the helm. Stark-Watzinger also no longer wants to hold her position as one of the deputy federal chairmen of the FDP . She will no longer stand for election when the party reorganizes itself at the national level in mid-May.

In contrast to her, Social Democrat Nancy Faeser will be a member of the next Bundestag. The fourth place that the state party had given her on the candidate list was considered safe from the start. But it also illustrated that the fifty-four-year-old lawyer is no longer part of the inner circle of leadership in the Hessian Social Democrats.

Faeser has already given up her position as state chairwoman after she failed as a top candidate in the state elections in October 2023. She has retained the office of Federal Minister of the Interior - and it is rather unlikely that she will be able to keep it. There is much to suggest that the Union will claim the house in order to be able to operationally control the federal government's line on the issue of migration.

But even if the coalition negotiations, with the dynamics inherent in such talks, were to lead to the Social Democrats providing the future Interior Minister, Faeser would probably not be the first choice: While the likely future Chancellor Friedrich Merz alone decides on the CDU's personnel, the posts to which the SPD is entitled are being discussed in the party's leadership circle.

It is far from certain that Faeser would have the massive support she needs from her regional association at this stage of the government formation process. Sören Bartol, who took over the position of regional chairman from her a good year ago, was the leading candidate in the election. At the beginning of the last legislative period, the 50-year-old political scientist became Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Housing. He has held the same position in the Ministry of Transport since the collapse of the traffic light coalition.

Anna Lührmann, the top candidate of the Hessian Greens, will remain a member of the Bundestag, but will lose her post as Minister of State in the Foreign Office when her party leaves the federal government. The 41-year-old political scientist, who holds a doctorate in political science, could use the resulting freedom to become chairwoman of the regional association, which has been shaken by the controversial trips abroad of its chairman, Andreas Ewald.

Kathrin Anders, a member of the state parliament, resigned from this position in protest against the way the top management handled the affair in December of last year. And a few hours later, all other board members also announced their resignation. However, in order not to jeopardize the campaign for the federal election, they were to remain in office. The new election is scheduled for mid-March.

On Monday, Lührmann responded to the FAZ's question as to whether she could imagine taking on the office by saying that "the focus is currently on the result of the federal election and its evaluation." On Tuesday, Julia Frank, the chairwoman of by far the largest Green Party district association in Frankfurt, officially announced her candidacy.