Sunday, May 13, 2012

German Center-left Opposition Parties Win in Blow to Merkel

Center-left opposition parties win big in blow to Merkel

Sun May 13, 2012 9:27PM GMT
presstv.ir

The center-left opposition parties win the local elections in western Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia, the country’s most populous state, in a development seen as a major blow to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party.

German voters went to the polls across the state earlier on Sunday to elect a regional parliament, the Associated Press reported.

According to exit poll results announced by Germany’s state ARD television, the Social Democrats and the Greens, the main German opposition parties, won combined support of 51 percent in the elections, which would be enough to give them a majority in the state legislature.

Over 13 million people were eligible to take part in the polls in North Rhine-Westphalia of around 18 million residents.

Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Party lost its majority in an election in the country’s northern state of Schleswig-Holstein last Sunday, foreshadowing its chances of reelection in the 2013 national elections.

Analysts further interpreted the center-left victory earlier in the day as another major setback for Merkel's party ahead of the national polls.

Sunday’s results also indicated that Germans’ support for Merkel's party had fallen from 35 percent in 2010 to around 26 percent.

North Rhine-Westphalia, which is a big industrial state accounting for a fifth of the country’s economy, was traditionally a center-left stronghold, though the center-right parties that form the national government ran it for five years until 2010.

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