ANGELA MERKEL’S CDU SUFFERS LOSSES IN GERMAN REGIONAL ELECTIONS: EXIT POLL

Mon 15 March 2021:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats suffered significant losses in two regional elections on Sunday. Merkel is not running again, and her party is worried that the results are an omen of things to come in upcoming Bundestag elections.

The votes in the German states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate were seen as the first major political test of the “super election year” which culminates with the general election in September, and the results may have caused CDU leaders to worry.

According to public broadcaster ARD’s exit poll, the environmentalist Green party managed to win nearly 32% of the vote in Baden-Wuerttemberg, a wealthy, conservative state known for its strong auto industry.

The CDU, which governed the state for over 50 years up to 2011, got its worst-ever result with just 23.9% of the vote, down from the 27% it scored in the last elections in 2016.

Merkel’s conservatives also suffered their worst state election in Rhineland-Palatinate, winning a record low of 26%, compared with 31.8% in 2016.

The CDU’s historical rival, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), is projected to win the elections in the state with 34.7% of the vote.

Sunday’s regional polls are widely seen as a test for Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democrats ahead of September’s national elections.

The CDU has faced growing criticism in recent weeks due to the government’s hard lockdown measures, slow pace of vaccination, and recent scandals over the procurement of face masks.

The party’s general secretary, Paul Ziemiak, admitted that the results were disappointing on Sunday evening. But he sought to put the defeat down to the “personal success” of the winning incumbent state premiers, of the Greens and the Social Democrats, rather than a failure of the CDU. “In a crisis, we saw that the voters trusted the governing leaders,” he said in a brief statement to reporters.

Nevertheless, Ziemiak acknowledged that recent corruption scandals and concern over the national government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic had damaged the CDU, which remains the biggest party in the country.

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