Success of right-wing extremists in German elections increases pressure on Scholz's government

The voters “wanted above all to send a signal to Berlin,” said Jens Spahn, a high-ranking CDU MP, on ZDF. “They want to signal to the (coalition) that the Chancellor no longer enjoys their trust. Olaf Scholz is also the face of failure in Thuringia and Saxony.”

One of the leaders of Scholz's party, Saskia Esken, insisted: “Olaf Scholz is our strong chancellor and he will be our strong candidate for chancellor.”

“We managed to turn things around in the last few months of the last federal election and we will manage it again this time,” she said. “And I want to say very clearly that all (coalition) parties, but especially our two coalition partners, must take the impetus from this election result to end these public disputes and pull together.”

The chances of that happening were not good on Monday, as each party insisted on its own policy priorities. Ricarda Lang, a co-leader of the environmentalist Greens, acknowledged that voters were tired of hearing politicians say the coalition must improve, “so I'm not going to make any false promises here.”