Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party lost in two state elections in southwest Germany on Sunday. In both the state of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, the CDU did not become the largest party, according to forecasts by German media.
In Baden-Württemberg, the CDU is expected to receive 24 percent of the vote, 3 percentage points less than in the previous elections in 2016. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the CDU holds about 26.5 percent of the vote. The party received 31.8 percent of the votes there in 2016. They are the worst results ever for the CDU in both areas.
According to observers, Merkel’s party is presented with the bill for the long corona lockdown and affairs involving CDU politicians who made big money from, among other things, the trade in mouth masks.
In prosperous Baden-Württemberg, the Greens clearly remained the largest party with around 32 percent of the vote, and Germany’s first Greens prime minister can continue to rule. The Social Democratic SPD, Merkel’s coalition partner in Berlin, held out in Rhineland-Palatinate. The party won 35.2 percent of the vote there.
The right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland lost a few percent in both states, which means that the advance of this new party seems to have stopped at least in the southwest.
The polls in the federal states serve as a barometer for national politics in this so-called super election year. More regional elections will follow and in six months’ time all of Germany will go to the polls to elect a new parliament in Berlin. Merkel, head of government since 2005, will no longer stand for re-election in these elections.
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