Voters in a crucial German state emphatically punished Chancellor Angela Merkel’s pro-austerity party yesterday, awarding her main centre-left rivals a major boost ahead of 2013 national elections.
While Germans nationally back Ms Merkel and her tough stance on European belt tightening and debt reduction, voters in the bellwether state of North Rhine-Westphalia plumped for the opposition’s more growth-oriented approach.
The western state, home to the Ruhr industrial heartland with large cities such as Dusseldorf and Cologne, is Germany’s most populous with 18 million people, and closely watched as a taste of things to come at federal level.
A week after voters in Greece and France baulked at austerity measures, prompting a warning by Mrs Merkel against “growth on credit”, her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) saw its worst ever result in NRW state with about 25.7 per cent.
“The defeat is bitter and it really hurts,” said the CDU’s main contender Norbert Roettgen, who is also Mrs Merkel’s environment minister.
The vote was the third regional election in Germany in eight weeks and comes a week after Mrs Merkel’s centre-right coalition lost power in the state of Schleswig-Holstein.
Mrs Merkel plans to fight for a third term in elections due in late 2013.
Meanwhile, CDU’s pro-austerity, pro-business coalition partners at the federal level, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), confirmed a reversal in its fortunes, after a string of humiliating defeats.
Hard on the heels of its better-than-expected result the previous Sunday in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, the FDP took about 8.5 per cent, significantly better than the around three per cent it is polling nationally.
Headed by the popular incumbent state premier Hannelore Kraft, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), who had been in a minority state coalition government with the Green ecologists, scored more than 38 per cent, according to preliminary results.
The two parties looked set to again form a coalition, although with a majority this time.
The upstart Pirate party continued its winning streak with more than seven per cent, gaining entry into the state Parliament for the first time, the fourth regional Parliament it has now entered since September.