The leader of the German Liberal Democratic Party (FDP), Christian Lindner, has ruled out on Monday any change of course despite the poor results of the party in Sunday’s elections in Berlin, in which it failed to achieve representation despite being part of the government at the federal level.
Lindner has defended his participation in the «traffic light» coalition. «Let others think of bans, shackles, tax hikes and indebtedness. We are the guarantee that the country remains in the political center,» he argued, according to German public television ARD.
However, he has acknowledged the poor results in Berlin. «The numbers are very clear. Unfortunately the Liberal Democrats have failed to connect with the voters in the elections» in Berlin, said Lindner.
The FDP won 4.6 percent of the vote, below the 5 percent minimum required by electoral law, in an election in which the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was the big winner. However, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens have enough support to continue governing.
«In the last meters we have lost tactically against the CDU and we have not been able to mobilize our supporters,» argued Lindner, who appeared at a press conference in Berlin together with his Berlin candidate, Sebastian Czaja. For Lindler, Czaja is «a strong candidate at a high level».
Since joining the «traffic light» federal government coalition with SPD and environmentalists, the FDP has performed poorly in regional elections. The FDP failed to win representation in Saarland and lost support in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia. It was also out of parliament in Lower Saxony.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
