Merkel’s CDU party suffers two defeats as election year kicks off

Chancellor Angela Merkel will not be seeking re-election later this year. Photo: AP/Markus Schreiber

Geir Moulson

March 15 2021 02:30 AM

According to projections released yesterday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right party is headed for clear defeats in two German state elections at the hands of popular governors from parties further to the left.

It comes six months before a national vote that will determine who succeeds the country’s long-time leader.

Yesterday’s votes for new state legislatures in the southwestern states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate kicked off an electoral marathon which features another four state ballots and the national election on September 26.

Ms Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) already faced a challenging task against the states’ well-liked governors. Projections for ARD and ZDF public television indicated that those governors’ parties – the environmentalist Greens in Baden-Wuerttemberg and the centre-left Social Democrats in Rhineland-Palatinate – were set to finish first, seven to nine percentage points ahead of the CDU.

“To say it very clearly, this isn’t a good election evening for the CDU,” said the party’s general secretary, Paul Ziemiak.

In Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany’s only Green party governor, Winfried Kretschmann, 72, has become popular with centrist voters in 10 years running a region that is home to automakers Daimler and Porsche.

The centre-left Social Democrats have led Rhineland-Palatinate for 30 years – currently under governor Malu Dreyer, whose personal popularity has kept her party’s support above its dismal national ratings.