SPD top candidate Willingmann celebrates despite the nine percent election result

Only a few minutes have passed after the blue bar rose to almost 45 percent, marking the AfD's landslide victory in the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt. When Armin Willingmann steps in front of the microphones, he seems to have already forgotten the bar. The SPD's leading candidate can hardly be stopped from his euphoria. His party is “stable” and “the SPD is a force to be reckoned with”. The red bar had stopped at just nine percent.

Willingmann's tones are absurd and dangerous at the same time. On the one hand, this has to do with the fact that the SPD owes its result primarily to the campaign to prevent the AfD from gaining an absolute majority. Yes, she was successful when she entered the state parliament. And yes, she was doing even worse in the polls before.

But how that can be a cause for celebration when you get to nine percent primarily through tactical voting remains a mystery. In 1998, the SPD got 36 percent in Saxony-Anhalt and thus won the election.