Merkel's Christian Democrats set to beat rivals in German state election
Source: The Guardian
Angela Merkel’s main challenger in the upcoming German election has conceded his party has suffered a “really stinging defeat” in North Rhine-Westphalia in what will be its third consecutive loss in a state vote.
Martin Schulz said the poll in the state, Germany’s most populous and regarded as a centre-left stronghold, represented “a difficult day for the Social Democrats (SDP), a difficult day for me personally as well. I come from the state in which we took a really stinging defeat today.”
Projections for ARD and ZDF public television, based on partial counting, showed Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) beating the Social Democrats in North Rhine-Westphalia by about 34.5% to 30.5%. They gave the Greens, the junior coalition partner in the state government, only 6%.
The projections mean the SDP-Green coalition is unlikely to hold a majority in the state legislature and puts the CDU in position to replace it. The state, which has a population of 17.9 million and includes Cologne, Düsseldorf and the Ruhr industrial region, has been led by the SDP for all but five years since 1966.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/14/angela-merkel-christian-democrats-beat-social-democrats-schulz-germany-state-election
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