FOLLOWED by a bevy of cameramen as if they were his retinue, Horst Seehofer, the premier of Bavaria, strode the halls of the palatial state parliament in Munich on the evening of September 15th. As he entered the hall belonging to his party, the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the packed crowd broke into rowdy cheers for “King Horst”. The CSU had just won an absolute majority of seats in the state parliament, letting it reign once again without a coalition partner, as it had done from 1966 to 2008. Even before the applause died down, however, one former CSU leader turned aside and privately said he worried about a different party.For the biggest news in that Bavarian election, regarded as a curtain-raiser for Germany’s federal poll on September 22nd, was the electoral disaster of the Free Democrats (FDP). This small liberal party has been the CSU’s coalition partner in Munich since 2008, just as in the federal parliament it is the partner of the CSU and its larger sister party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by Angela Merkel, the chancellor. In Bavaria the FDP got only 3.3% of the vote, well below the 5% threshold needed to enter parliament….
