The beloved traitor -- Oskar Lafontaine and voting behaviour at the Saarland state election of 2009

Already prior to the Saarland state election of 2009 one of the candidates drew special media attention -- the candidate of the Left Party: Oskar Lafontaine. Taking this media attention as a starting point for our analysis we examine the different factors influencing the voting decisions for the Left Party in Saarland and compare them to factors influencing voters of the other established political parties as well as to voters of the Left Party in other German Lander. The voting behaviour of the Left Party voters at the Saarland Land election greatly differed from voters of the other parties as well as from voters of the Left Party in other Lander. And those differences can be traced back to "the beloved traitor" Oskar Lafontaine. Aside from the specific results for the Left Party in Saarland, the potential influence on voting behaviour of "the right" candidate becomes clear. Adapted from the source document.