Exit polls from the state elections in Saarland show the CDU ahead with a clear lead over the SPD. The vote is the first in a series leading up to federal elections in September.
Germany's "super election year" kicked off on Sunday, with some 800,000 eligible voters casting ballots for the state parliament in Saarland. After polls closed at 6 p.m. local time, (1700 UTC) projections were that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was ahead with 40.1 percent with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) trailing on 30.1 percent. Full results are expected later on Sunday night.
In an Infratest Dimap exit poll, the Left party (Linke) was reported to have taken 13 percent, Alternative for Germany (AfD) 6.1 percent and the Greens 4.5 percent of the votes, apparently falling short of the 5 percent threshold to gain seats in the new parliament.
The outcome of the vote in Germany's smallest non-city state is being widely watched as a sign of voter sentiment ahead of state elections in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia in May, and federal elections in September.
The CDU has ruled the southwestern state for the past 18 years, but the conservative state premier Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (photo) faced a potential upset from the center-left SPD led by Anke Rehlinger, the state's deputy premier and minister for economic affairs.
The SPD's popularity has surged in recent months on the so-called "Schulz effect," a reference to Martin Schulz, the new party leader and its candidate for chancellor.
In January, polls showed the CDU had more than a 10 point lead over the SPD. That comfortable margin in opinion polls narrowed to 37 percent for the CDU compared to the SPD's 33 percent, according to an Elections Research Group poll conducted for public broadcaster ZDF only three days before the vote. Some polls in the weeks before the vote put the CDU's lead at only one percent. Turnout was reported to be 71 percent, a rise from the 61.6 turnout in the 2012 poll.
A family at the polls in Püttlingen
The CDU and SPD are in a "grand coalition" in Saarland, just as Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and the SPD are at the national level. Another CDU-SPD coalition in the state is possible.
An SPD coalition with the Left party, led by prominent politician from Saarland, Oskar Lafontaine looks less likely following the exit polls. The 73-year-old Lafontaine served as premier of Saarland for the SPD from 1985 to 1998, but defected to the Left party twelve years ago.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) siphoned off support from all mainstream parties before retreating slightly in nationwide polls in recent months.
Multiple polls over the past month showed the anti-immigrant, right-wing party edging over the 5 percent electoral threshold by one or two points in Saarland. That would put the AfD in its 11th state parliament out of Germany's 16 federal states.
The Green party in Saarland, meanwhile, faces the chance of not being represented. Polls over the past month show the party just at or below of the 5 percent threshold to enter the state parliament. If the party manages to secure seats in the parliament, a left-leaning coalition with the Left party and the Greens could also be an option for Rehling and the SPD to govern in Saarland.
The liberal, pro-free market Free Democratic Party (FDP) looks unlikely to enter Saarland's parliament.
No comments:
Post a Comment