Merkel's CDU suffers worst ever result in Hamburg elections
Voters handed German chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) their worst ever result in Hamburg on Sunday, punishing them for flirting with the far right in an eastern state and descending into a messy leadership battle.
Preliminary results also showed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) just scraping into the state parliament, only four days after a racist gunman killed 11 people, including himself and his mother, in the western town of Hanau.
The Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens celebrated in Germany’s second biggest city after taking first and second place, meaning they will probably maintain their ruling coalition in the northern port and city-state.
The conservative CDU suffered after party leader and Merkel protegee Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said she would stand aside, blowing open the race to succeed the chancellor and throwing the party into turmoil.
The CDU slipped into third place, scoring just 11.2%. The AfD, which has capitalised on anger over Merkel’s open-door migrant policy, especially in the former communist east of the country, won 5.3%, just over the 5% threshold needed to get into the state parliament, according to preliminary results.
Kramp-Karrenbauer’s move came after an eastern branch of the CDU defied the national party and voted with the AfD to install a state premier from a third party – breaking a postwar consensus among established parties of shunning the far right.
“It is a bitter day for the CDU in Germany and a historically bad result in Hamburg,” said CDU secretary general Paul Ziemiak.
The CDU leadership team meets on Monday and Kramp-Karrenbauer is expected to set out a timetable for a decision on the party chair and possibly the chancellor candidate. Up to five candidates are jockeying for the jobs.
Merkel, chancellor for almost 15 years, has said she will not run in the next federal election, which is due by October 2021.
Preliminary results put the SPD, who share power with the conservatives at the national level, down about 6 points from the last vote in 2015, but on 39.1% they are still by the far the biggest party in Hamburg.
The Greens were the biggest winners, reflecting their national strength driven by growing fears about climate change. They almost doubled their vote to 24.1% and national co-leader Robert Habeck declared it a “fantastic result”.
Nationally, the Greens are second, behind the conservative bloc, and many commentators expect them to have a role in the next federal government.