Merkel, conservative allies lose grip on Bavarian voters

BERLIN — Voters in the southern German heartland of Bavaria appeared to have dealt a stinging blow to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative allies Sunday.

The result, if confirmed, marks a humbling moment for the Christian Social Union, a party that has governed for decades, while boosting the fortunes of players to the left and the right in an election defined by polarized opinions about immigration.

Votes for the Bavarian state parliament rarely have been competitive in modern lifetimes. The CSU has been a juggernaut of postwar Bavaria, leading the region for 61 consecutive years and rarely needing a partner to do so.

The party is expected to continue to govern even after Sunday’s election. But projected results based on exit polls Sunday evening showed the CSU’s share of the vote falling dramatically, from nearly half in 2013 to barely more than one-third, with 35.5 percent. Parties on either ideological flank — the Greens on the left, with an estimated 19 percent, and the Alternative for Germany on the far right, with 11 percent — severely dented the CSU’s traditional dominance.

If the results hold, the CSU will need to cut a deal with one or more rivals to stay in power in a state known for its Alpine beauty as well as its industrial might.

The projected results sent a stream of green confetti raining down on jubilant Greens activists at the party’s election night headquarters. There was a similarly exuberant celebration among AfD supporters.

It was a different story for the CSU, with a sternfaced Bavarian state premier Markus Soder telling the party faithful result “isn’t easy.”

“We will accept it with humility. We will need to learn from it. We need to analyze it precisely,” he said.

But Soder insisted the CSU will continue to lead the state’s government, despite a result that is the party’s second worst in its history. The CSU, he said, “isn’t only the strongest party, but it received a clear mandate to govern.”

The election was watched closely in Germany, and the results appear to fit a pattern seen within the country and across the continent. Traditional centrist parties that the that once flirted with absolute majorities of the vote are withering. Niche and politically extreme parties are gaining as the electorate fragments into ever finer shards.

At the national level, that has meant a record seven parties in the parliament since elections last year and a deeply dysfunctional governing coalition of three.

Sunday’s result likely will reverberate loudly in Berlin, where it will be seen as yet another blow to Merkel’s once-mighty fusion of her own Christian Democratic Union with its Bavarian sister, the CSU.