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AFP
Hamburg
Voters in German city-state Hamburg punished Chancellor Angela Merkel’s crisis-racked conservatives and ejected the far right from parliament in a regional election on Sunday, according to an exit poll.
According to the Infratest exit poll, the biggest winners in Sunday’s vote were the progressive, ecologist Greens.
They more than doubled their score to over 25 percent after climate change shot to the top of Germany’s political agenda in 2019.
After weeks of intense political turmoil at national level, including never-before-seen cooperation between the centre and far right, some 57 percent had cast their vote by 4:00 pm (1500 GMT), two hours before the polls closed, election officials said on their website.
The centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) defended its position as the strongest force with 37.5 percent, while shedding over eight points on 2015.
By contrast, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) lost more than four points, to 11.5 -- one of its worst-ever scores in any German region.
The party has been sapped across Germany by a long-running leadership crisis, sharpened by its unprecedented apparent alliance with far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) earlier in February.
AfD itself and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) may both have failed to clear the five-percent hurdle needed to enter parliament, the poll suggested.
With the marked boost for the Greens and grinding down of the formerly dominant CDU and SPD, Hamburg’s results reflect in some respects the broader political picture of fragmentation visible in Germany-wide polls.
But the prosperous port city with a proud left-of-centre tradition may also be the first state to deny AfD seats in parliament, just two years after it completed its sweep into all 16 German state legislatures in a post-World War II first for a far-right party.
In many other parts of Germany, AfD polls in double digits, scoring above 20 percent in several recent state elections in the former communist east.
That has been enough to throw sand in the gears of regional politics, with national repercussions.
Earlier this month, Merkel’s conservatives were shaken by the apparent alliance of their regional branch in eastern state Thuringia with AfD, voting in an FDP politician as state premier. The breach of a historic political taboo provoked a nationwide backlash against both the mainstream right-of-centre parties.
As a result, CDU leader and Merkel’s heir apparent Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced her resignation, throwing open the question of who will succeed the veteran chancellor following elections next year at the latest.
Hamburg
Voters in German city-state Hamburg punished Chancellor Angela Merkel’s crisis-racked conservatives and ejected the far right from parliament in a regional election on Sunday, according to an exit poll.
According to the Infratest exit poll, the biggest winners in Sunday’s vote were the progressive, ecologist Greens.
They more than doubled their score to over 25 percent after climate change shot to the top of Germany’s political agenda in 2019.
After weeks of intense political turmoil at national level, including never-before-seen cooperation between the centre and far right, some 57 percent had cast their vote by 4:00 pm (1500 GMT), two hours before the polls closed, election officials said on their website.
The centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) defended its position as the strongest force with 37.5 percent, while shedding over eight points on 2015.
By contrast, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) lost more than four points, to 11.5 -- one of its worst-ever scores in any German region.
The party has been sapped across Germany by a long-running leadership crisis, sharpened by its unprecedented apparent alliance with far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) earlier in February.
AfD itself and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) may both have failed to clear the five-percent hurdle needed to enter parliament, the poll suggested.
With the marked boost for the Greens and grinding down of the formerly dominant CDU and SPD, Hamburg’s results reflect in some respects the broader political picture of fragmentation visible in Germany-wide polls.
But the prosperous port city with a proud left-of-centre tradition may also be the first state to deny AfD seats in parliament, just two years after it completed its sweep into all 16 German state legislatures in a post-World War II first for a far-right party.
In many other parts of Germany, AfD polls in double digits, scoring above 20 percent in several recent state elections in the former communist east.
That has been enough to throw sand in the gears of regional politics, with national repercussions.
Earlier this month, Merkel’s conservatives were shaken by the apparent alliance of their regional branch in eastern state Thuringia with AfD, voting in an FDP politician as state premier. The breach of a historic political taboo provoked a nationwide backlash against both the mainstream right-of-centre parties.
As a result, CDU leader and Merkel’s heir apparent Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced her resignation, throwing open the question of who will succeed the veteran chancellor following elections next year at the latest.
