Merkel's troubles increase as party seems to stumble in German regional elections

BERLIN – The inimitable position of Chancellor Angela Merkel in German politics suffered a new shock Sunday as support for her party fell precipitously into a state that has long spearheaded the nation, showed the expected results.

This result is only the most recent indication of Merkel's loss of control in Europe's largest economy, although there is still no sign of an impending fall.

The election of the parliament of Hesse – seat of Frankfurt, heart of the German finance – gave 27% of the vote to the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) of Merkel, according to projections, Sunday evening.

That was enough for first place, but down 11% since the last state vote in 2013, which is the party's worst performance in the state for more than half a century. Party leader Volker Bouffier called the result "very humiliating".

The support of Merkel's coalition, the center-left social democrats (SPD), has also dropped from 31% to 20% – a record low for 72 years.

After the vote, SPD leader Andrea Nahles called the result "unacceptable" and left open the possibility that his party could step out of Merkel's already precarious coalition – a move that would collapse the government.

It remains to be seen, she said, whether the SPD "is still fit for this government".

While the two centrist parties in the country, traditionally dominant, raged in Hesse, the forces multiplied: the right-wing alternative for Germany (AfD) and the progressive Greens. The latter was fighting for second place with the SPD after his best result in the history of the state.

The result was an almost exact repeat of the results in Bavaria two weeks ago, when the sister party of the CDU, the Christian Social Union (CSU), was humiliated in a state where it has long ruled unrivaled. After this vote, Merkel's allies blamed the weak immigration results on the right of the CSU.

But Sunday's vote suggests that the image of the CDU has also been hit hard in a year in which the nation's policy has been overshadowed by persistent enmity in Merkel's government.

The CDU has ruled Hesse for nearly 20 years and the party has campaigned on an enviable record in extreme unemployment, high salaries and minimal crime.

But analysts said voters regarded the election as a referendum on the national government and their results were mediocre.

"The message was very clear: do not argue. Meet. Be the strong Germany that Europe needs, "said Sigrid Rossteutscher, an analyst at Goethe University in Frankfurt.

Nevertheless, the CDU seemed to have avoided the worst case scenario in Hesse: the potential humiliation of losing control of the state, while the leftist parties seemed to lack the support needed to form a government of their own alone. This means that the CDU will almost certainly remain in command, with the Greens and centrist Centrist Democrats as likely partners in the coalition.

The fall of power in Hesse was seen as a possible prelude to a much larger upheaval for the party. The CDU is holding its annual conference in December and Merkel, who has been leading Germany for 13 years, will seek re-election as the party's president.

Had the party surrendered control to Hesse, some analysts considered it vulnerable to an intra-party challenge. Although the CDU remained relatively unified behind its leader in public, discontent widened as the party's fortunes sank.

The results in Bavaria and Hesse reflect the country's political tendencies. In the German election last September, the CDU won one-third of the vote, a historically mediocre performance for a party that dominated post-war politics in the country. But current polls show that the CDU does not even win a quarter of the national vote.

Similarly, the SPD has fallen sharply at the national level, with Germany's oldest political party rising from second to fourth behind the Greens and AFD.

Rossteutscher said the SPD would be reluctant to overthrow Merkel's government, as party leaders know that if they do so and early elections are called, the SPD "would be the biggest loser".

AFD won Sunday nearly 13% of the vote, almost the same percentage that it won in last year's national elections, and a seat in the parliament of Hesse for the first time.

Just five years after the founding of the party to protest against the rescue of the euro area, anti-immigrant AFD now controls the seats in the 16 parliaments of the German states, in addition to the national Bundestag and the European Parliament.

"The elections have been a success on all fronts," said AfD's head in Hesse, Jörg Meuthen.

But the biggest winner of the evening was the Greens. The party almost doubled its support from 2013, eliminating defectors from the CDU and the SPD. The result, combined with an equally impressive second place in Bavaria, highlighted a new vitality on the left of German politics.

"People thought that elections can only be won on the far right," said party co-chair Robert Habeck. But the Greens have proved, he said, that "passion, optimism and a pro-European policy can apparently also mobilize support".

Luisa Beck contributed to this report.

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