GERMAN chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative allies have lost their majority in Bavaria’s state parliament by a wide margin in a regional election that could cause more turbulence in the national government.
The Christian Social Union (CSU) took 37.2% of the vote, down from 47.7% five years ago.
It was the party’s worst performance in a state vote in Bavaria, which it has traditionally dominated, in 68 years.
Squabbling in Merkel’s government and a power struggle at home have weighed on the CSU.
Traditionally, it is more right-wing than the chancellor’s party and has taken a hard-line on migration, clashing with Merkel’s stance on the issue.
Meanwhile, left and right wing parties saw gains. The Greens won second place with 17.5%, doubling their support from 2013.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) entered the state legislature with 10.2% of the vote.
The centre-left Social Democrats – Merkel’s other national coalition partner in Berlin – finished in fifth place with a disastrous 9.7%, less than half of what they received in 2013 and their worst in the state since the Second World War.
Bavaria, the prosperous south-eastern state that is home to some 13 million of Germany’s 82m people, has been governed by the CSU for more than six decades.
Needing a coalition to govern is a major setback for the party, which exists solely in Bavaria and has held an absolute majority in its state parliament for the majority of the past 56 years.
“Of course this isn’t an easy day for the CSU,” the state’s governor, Markus Soeder, told supporters in Munich, adding that the party accepted the “painful” result “with humility”.
Soeder said, “It’s not so easy to uncouple yourself from the national trend completely.”
He stressed that the CSU still emerged as the state’s strongest party with a mandate to form the next Bavarian government.
It remains to be seen whether and how the Bavarian result will affect the national government’s stability or Merkel’s long-term future.
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