Voters in three German states headed to the polls yesterday for regional elections that are seen as a key test of sentiment before a federal vote next month in which German Chancellor Angela Merkel hopes to win a second term.
Merkel and her conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) hold a comfortable 12 point to 15 point poll lead over their center-left rivals, the Social Democrats (SPD), ahead of the Sept. 27 national vote and she appears to be cruising toward re-election.
But the SPD sees the state votes — in Saarland, Saxony and Thuringia — as a chance to slow her drive for a second term. A poor performance by the conservatives yesterday would give the SPD a psychological boost for the final phase of the campaign and sour the mood in Merkel’s camp.
Any erosion in support might endanger her hopes of sealing a center-right government next month with the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) and possibly force her into another awkward “grand coalition” with the SPD.
“The SPD will try to make the most of any gains in these regional votes,” said Peter Loesche, emeritus professor of political science at Goettingen University.
Voting began at 8am and the first exit polls were due to be published at 6pm. Because of unusually complex coalition mathematics and policy differences, it could take weeks until new governments are in place.
Conservative allies of Merkel currently govern in all three of the states that were voting yesterday and opinion polls give each of them a lead. But in Saarland, on the French border, and Thuringia, in eastern Germany, victory is far from assured.
In both states, three-way coalitions of the SPD, far-left “Linke” and environmentalist Greens could sweep the incumbents from power if they can overcome their differences.
If this happens in Saarland, a tiny state of 1 million people tucked into a western corner of Germany, it would be the first regional partnership of the SPD and “Linke,” or Left party, in the west of the country.
Direct descendants of former East Germany’s ruling communist party, which built the Berlin Wall, the Left party is loathed by many moderates in the SPD and cooperation with them outside the country’s eastern regions has been taboo until now.
That has forced the SPD leadership into a delicate balancing act — condoning cooperation with the Left at the regional level while ruling it out nationally after next months federal vote.
Merkel’s conservatives are likely to seize on any signs the SPD is ready to work with the Left to stir up voter fears of a dangerous “red wave.”
In the third state of Saxony, Merkel’s conservatives look poised to hold onto power by either continuing their coalition with the SPD or sealing a new partnership with the FDP.
After scoring 9.2 percent in the last election in Saxony, the far-right NPD could fail to reach the five percent threshold required to make it into the state assembly.
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
RSS