A major state election yesterday could shake up the campaign for Germany’s national election later this year, with the center-left opposition hoping for a morale-boosting victory over German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition.
About 6.1 million people are eligible to vote for a new state legislature in Lower Saxony, which occupies a swathe of northwestern Germany. It has been run for the past decade by a coalition of Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats and the pro-market Free Democrats, the same parties that form the national government.
The vote is a significant electoral test before national parliamentary elections in September, in which Merkel will seek a third four-year term. She and her party are riding high in polls, but the opposition hopes Lower Saxony will show she is vulnerable.
Pre-election polls in the state showed a neck-and-neck race between her coalition and the opposition Social Democrats and Greens, who have been struggling to gain traction nationally.
Much could depend on the performance of Merkel’s allies, the Free Democrats, whose support has eroded badly since they joined her national government in 2009. They have failed to win major tax cuts that they once pledged and have taken much of the blame for frequent public bickering in the chancellor’s coalition. If the Free Democrats fail to win the 5 percent support needed to gain seats in the state legislature yesterday, that could help hand Lower Saxony to the opposition — and prompt the departure of embattled party leader Philipp Roesler, who is also vice chancellor.
Lower Saxony opposition leader Stephan Weil says a win would “fire up” his Social Democrats and would mean that a center-left German government “will be taken seriously as an option after the national election.”
Lower Saxony’s governor, popular Christian Democrat David McAllister, says that now “is not the time for any experiments.”
Both nationally and in Lower Saxony, Merkel and her party have been bolstered by a relatively robust economy, low unemployment and the chancellor’s hard-nosed handling of Europe’s debt crisis — criticized in debt-burdened European countries, but well-received among German taxpayers. Merkel has also profited from stumbles by the Social Democrats’ candidate for chancellor, former German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in