Merkel cheers victory in state poll

Chancellor’s Christian Democrats wins 41 per cent of votes in Saarland, five points higher than last poll

German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterdaywelcomed a surprise state poll triumph by her party as “encouraging” for a September general election, as hype around her main rival fizzled in its first test.

With just six months to go until voters decide whether Merkel will have a fourth term, the election in the tiny southwestern state of Saarland Sunday took on outsize importance.

Voters returned Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) to power with 41 per cent of the vote, five points higher than at the last election in 2012. “Yesterday was a great day and thus an encouraging day,” she said, after presenting Saarland’s victorious CDU premier Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer with a bouquet of daisies.

The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), who had been enjoying a surge in the polls thanks to their freshlyanointed standard bearer, Martin Schulz, came in a distant second with 30 per cent.

Schulz, the former president of the European Parliament, admitted yesterday that the result had been a bitter disappointment just a week after SPD delegates unanimously elected him party chairman. But he tried to put a brave face on the defeat.

“Election campaigns are marathons and not sprints, and we have good stamina,” he said, warning the CDU that “those who are celebrating today shouldn’t count their chickens before they hatch”.

Saarland is governed by a “grand coalition” government, the same right-left alliance that Merkel leads in Berlin.

For Schulz to take her job from her, he would likely need to win a majority for a leftist coalition with the farleft Die Linke and the ecologist Greens party known as Red-Red-Green.

Commentators said the Saarland result indicated voters may be getting cold feet about that prospect.

Germany’s top-selling daily Bild said Merkel clearly had the wind in her sails after the Saarland vote, noting the dilemma faced by Schulz and the SPD.