German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s junior coalition ally was roundly kicked out of a regional assembly on Sunday in a vote that handed Merkel’s own party a clear victory.
The pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), which has ruled in a national coalition with Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) since 2009, garnered just about 1.5 percent of the vote in the small state of Saarland.
A party must attain 5 percent of the vote to enter parliament. New federal elections are due next year.
Merkel’s conservative CDU retained its position as the state’s strongest party, winning about 35.2 percent, while the Social Democrats (SPD) followed with 30.6 percent, a significant increase on its 2009 result.
The leftist Linke party won about 16 percent and the Pirate Party, which burst on to the German political scene in September last year, won its second footing in a state parliament with more than 7 percent.
The CDU and SPD are now expected to form a “grand coalition” in Saarland after both parties’ leaders indicated a willingness to work together ahead of the election.
The snap election in the western state of about 800,000 voters bordering France and Luxembourg was called after the coalition of CDU, FDP and Greens — a first in Germany — collapsed in January.
It began an electoral season of three quick-fire state ballots. Voters in northern Schleswig-Holstein go to the polls on May 6, followed by western North Rhine-Westphalia on May 13.
Wipeouts in both elections for the FDP would raise serious questions about the future of German Vice Chancellor Philipp Roesler, elected party leader in only May last year, threatening more upheaval in the government.
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