‘Social Democrats’ to win in Hamburg vote

CDU party to elect new leader

BERLIN,Feb 24, (AP): The center-left Social Democrats won the most votes in the Hamburg state election Sunday, according to projections, followed by the environmentalist Green party in a vote that was overshadowed by a racist massacre and political turmoil in Germany.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats appeared to lose badly, receiving the weakest results in Hamburg, which is Germany’s second-biggest city and its own state, in the last seven decades.

In what would be a large upset, the far-right Alternative for Germany – which has been especially successful in state elections in eastern Germany where it got up to about a quarter of the – appears to not have received the 5% of the vote needed to get into the state assembly.

According to projections, the Social Democrats received 38% of the vote, down from 45.6% in 2015, but still making them the winner. The Greens almost doubled their result to 25.5%, up from 12.3%. Hamburg has been governed for the last five years by a coalition made up of the center-left Social Democrats and the environmentalist Green party. Both parties campaigned on the issue of climate change.

The Christian Democrats received 11%, down from 15.9%.

According to the projections, AfD received between 4.7% and 4.8% of the vote, down from 6.1%, meaning the far-right party would be kicked out of the state parliament. The Free Democrats had 5%, which means they would just make it into parliament.

The Hamburg election comes at a time of political turmoil in Germany. On Wednesday, nine people were killed by an immigrant-hating gunman in the Frankfurt suburb of Hanau. The racist attack was Germany’s third deadly far-right attack in a matter of months and came at a time when AfD has become the country’s first political party in decades to establish itself as a significant force on the extreme right.

Many are accusing the party of producing a climate where right-wing extremism can flourish. The 7-year-old party now has members in all 16 state parliaments and is the largest opposition party nationally, though with less than 13% of the vote in the last election. If final election results show that the party did indeed not make it into the state assembly, Hamburg voters would be the first to kick AfD out of a German state parliament again.

Earlier this month, a controversial vote in Thuringia where the state governor was elected with the votes of AfD – and the Christian Democrats’ voting with far-right colleagues – appalled left-leaning parties and many in the mainstream center-right camp. Merkel called the election of the Free Democrats’ Thomas Kemmerich inexcusable. Partnering with the far-right has been a political taboo since after World War II.

After much turmoil, Kemmerich resigned, but the aftereffects are still being felt in national politics and the apparent defeat of the Christian Democrats and Free Democrats in Hamburg may be related to the chaotic performance of the two parties in Thuringia.

Official final results were expected Monday night.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union will elect a new leader at the end of April, party officials said Monday.

Current party chief Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer had been Merkel’s preferred heir-apparent, but announced earlier this month that she would step down and not seek to become the next chancellor in 2021 elections.

The decision came after a series of poor showings in state elections, and a failure by KrampKarrenbauer, who is also Germany’s defense minister, to establish her authority over the party.

That trend continued on Sunday with state elections in Hamburg, where the CDU saw its support drop by 4.7 percentage points to 11.2% overall, putting the party behind the surging Greens and the Social Democrats.

It was, according to Kramp-Karrenbauer, a “bitter evening.”

There are three favorites to succeed her – former parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz, Armin Laschet, the governor of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia and Health Minister Jens Spahn.

None of the three men has yet officially declared his candidacy. But a fourth candidate, former environment minister Norbert Roettgen, announced last week that he would seek the CDU leadership.

The choice of a new leader will be made at a special party meeting in Berlin on April 25, said Kramp-Karrenbauer.

The Christian Democrats campaign nationally with the Bavarian-only Christian Social Union, and the two parties will together have to decide on a joint candidate to run for chancellor.

Merkel

A car drove into a crowd at a Carnival procession in a German town on Monday, injuring several people, police said.

A large number of police are at the scene in Volkmarsen, about 280 kilometers (175 miles) southwest of Berlin, and the driver was arrested, Northern Hesse police said.

Local media reported at least a dozen injuries, including children, but police couldn’t immediately confirm the information. Video from the scene showed a silver Mercedes station wagon with local license plates and its hazard lights blinking on the sidewalk, while emergency crews walked by.

The crash came amid the height of Germany’s celebration of Carnival, with the biggest parades in Cologne, Duesseldorf and Mainz. Volkmarsen, a town of about 7,000, is east of Duesseldorf, near Kassel.

Police shut down the area to allow emergency crews to deal with the crash.

Police said they couldn’t immediately provide further details and urged people not to spread “unconfirmed reports” about the crash.