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BERLIN – Voters in one of Germany's most prosperous states punished Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative again on Sunday in an election that was seen as yet another barometer of her and her party's standing with the German public.
The verdict in Hesse state, an apparently tepid, and certainly shrinking, of the chancellor's party, was in keeping with the trend throughout Germany in recent years.
While Ms. Merkel's Christian Democrats emerged as the leading vote getters and were expected to be a new government there, that was hardly surprising. They have dominated politics in Hesse state for nearly two decades, sometimes by wide margins.
But the voting Sunday, the conservatives were expected to earn the backing of only 27 percent of the voters – more than 10 points in the previous election in 2013.
Their coalition partner in the national government, the Social Democrats, were also expected to lose 10 points from their previous total, and garner around 20 percent of the vote.
With Sunday's results, the anti-immigrant AfD easily passed the threshold for entering the national legislature for the first time, giving it representation in all 16 of Germany's state parliaments.
If the projections for Hesse remain constant, the coalition of Christian Democrats and Greens would continue in power. But given the extremely tight race, it was not clear if they would have had enough to continue their government of the past five years.
With the entrance of the AfD and the far-left Left, six parts in the legislature, meaning the shape of the future.
Candidates in Hesse had tried to focus on local issues like education, transportation and infrastructure. But voters wanted to focus on the outset, seeking to punish the chancellor's center-right Christian Democrats and their governing partners, the center-left Social Democrats, for the infighting that has plagued them since they took power in March.
While Ms. Merkel's party managed to squeak through, the outcome of Sunday's vote, it will be six weeks before a party congress, which she said, she will run for leader, a position she has held since April 2000.
So far, no serious candidates have emerged to challenge her. But last month, one of her closest allies was defeated as a leader in the conservative block by a little-known challenger – further indication that Ms. Merkel's support is weakening within her own party.
The Chancellor 's Conservative Expressions in the Hesse, but the focus is on their focus on governance, and on restructuring the party. The conservatives have watched their support at the level of the 27 percent, 35 percent they enjoyed when Ms. Merkel was elected to the first term in 2005.
"Where there are losses," said Helge Braun, Ms. Merkel's chief of staff told public broadcaster ARD, but did not elaborate further.
Annegret Kamp-Karrenbauer, Secretary-General of the Conservative Party, said: "Of course, we are in the Christian Democrats are not happy. We need a new culture in the governing coalition and a regeneration of the Christian Democrats. "
Her coalition partners at the national level, the Social Democrats, have never felt comfortable in the government. They believe they have been born for the conservatives, and they are so agonizing. On Sunday, their leader, Andrea Nahles, places the blame for her party's losses squarely on the coalition in Berlin.
"The state of the governing coalition is not acceptable," Ms. Nahles told her party after the results were announced. She said that the Social Democrats would be drawing up a "road map" for the year ahead, until the midterm review of her party insisted on the part of the Merkel's government.
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