WORLD
Narrow Defeat for Merkel`s Coalition in German State Election
Baku, January 22 (AZERTAC). German Chancellor Angela Merkel`s bid for a third term in office suffered a blow Sunday when left-leaning opposition parties defeated a coalition of her Christian Democrats and pro-business Free Democrats with a razor-thin one-seat majority in a closely-watched election in the state of Lower Saxony.
The narrow defeat for Ms. Merkel`s center-right coalition parties in Lower Saxony shows how difficult it may be for her coalition to stay in power after the general election in September. The opposition victory in Germany`s fourth-largest state gives a badly-needed boost to Peer Steinbrück, Ms. Merkel`s Social Democrat challenger, whose campaign has stumbled amid a series of gaffes and missteps.
In a cliffhanger election that was too close to call up to the very end of counting the ballots, the opposition Social Democrats, known as the SPD, took 32.6% of the vote, while the Greens, received 13.7%, their best result ever in the state. Together, the SPD and the Greens will have 69 seats in the state legislature, one seat more than the CDU and FDP. Stephan Weil, the SPD`s candidate for governor, vowed to rule with just one seat more than the opposition.
The alternative to a fragile one-vote majority would be a grand coalition between the two biggest parties – the CDU and the SPD, in which the SPD would be the junior partner. Analysts said that would dishearten leftist voters, making it harder to get SPD members to vote in September.
The Lower Saxony race shows that the German electorate may be drifting into two largely evenly divided camps. That could make it harder for either of the big parties—the CDU and the SPD—to form stable coalitions with smaller parties of their liking in the future.