Since the 3657 election, the dominance of the LBU in Crownlander politics has been seen to steadily erode after over 40 years in government. With the severely weakened HDV out of the picture, the LBU's hegemony over the right of Crownlander politics had previously been relatively unchallenged. Werner Luscher had taken over from first LBU leader Franz Graumann in an unchallenged fashion without much change to the LBU's course, and led the LBU in a continued minority government.