Merkel’s rule shaken by latest election blow

ANGELA MERKEL’s political future looked uncertain yesterday as her coalition government looked to have suffered heavy losses in key regional elections for the second time in as many weeks.

According to initial exit polls, her Christian Democrat party (CDU) recorded its worst result since 1966 in the central state of Hesse. Home to the German financial capital Frankfurt, it is a symbolic prize, having been a CDU stronghold for decades.

But in a vote widely seen as a verdict on Mrs Merkel’s troubled national government, her main coalition partners, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), were facing major losses too.

The main beneficiary was the Green Party, which was tied with the SPD for second place and on course to double its vote.

The nationalist far-right Alternative for Germany party, which had built its appeal to voters based on opposition to Mrs Merkel’s welcoming policy to migrants, also had a successful night and was poised to enter the Hesse parliament, giving it representation in every state parliament in Germany for the first time.

Gunter Rudolph, a senior figure in the regional SPD leadership in Hesse, said: “There was a hurricane from Berlin that bore down on us.”

Although it was a regional election, most voters used it as an opportunity to send a signal to Mrs Merkel’s government. Early data suggested the CDU would come first in Hesse but with 27.8pc – a fall of more than 10 points compared with elections there in 2013. (© Daily Telegraph, London)