It was of little surprise that the right-of-center Christian Social Union party (CSU) would win the highest number of votes in Sunday's Bavarian State election. However the 37 percent they brought in proved to be a new low for a party that has long had a clear dominance over the state government for decades.

‌Yet CSU chairman Markus Soder still called the results a "clear government mandate."

‌In an interview with public broadcaster ARD shortly after the preliminary results came in, Soder said he would hold talks with the conservative Free Voters party this week to continue the current governing coalition to "ensure that a democratic and good Bavaria is preserved even in these times."

‌For the last five years the CSU has governed with the Free Voters, made up largely of center right independents and who came in second with 15.8 percent of votes.

‌By "these times," Soder was not only referring to the decline in popularity for his own party, but for the uptick in support voters are showing for the far right.

Coming in third was the Alternative for Deutschland or AFD, an unapologetic right-wing populist political party that has been called "extremists" by some.

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They won 14.6 percent of Bavarian votes, an increase of 4.5 percent from 2018 elections. Many voters CGTN spoke to in Munich, the state capital, claimed issues campaigned on by the AFD were what drove them to the polls, such as immigration.

‌"What is important in these elections, these years, the migration problem in Germany," says Helen, a 55-year-old business administrator. "We have two million immigrants, but we have not so many schools, not so many houses so yes, in my opinion, at the moment this is important."

‌However, districts of Munich also saw high support for the environmental Green party, who came in forth, but with 3 percent less votes than the last election.

H‌ans, a 27-year-old voter, said "I think the biggest problem of our time in Climate Change and all other things are connected to this."

‌This election has been seen by many as a barometer of sorts on the federal coalition government in Berlin, as many of the issues affecting the entire nation were prominent in state party campaigns.

‌All three parties that make up the so-called traffic light federal coalition lost support in Bavaria with Chancellor Olaf Scholz's left-of-center Social Democrats (SPD) coming in fifth with slightly over 8 percent and the centrist Free Democratic Party (FDP) not even crossing the 5 percent threshold to enter the state parliament.

As the CSU's Markus Soder rightly said, his party does have a "clear mandate" to form the next state government that will govern Bavaria for the next five years, but many voters have also made it clear that they would like the next coalition to embrace a harder stance on certain issues.

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