German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition faced a renewed setback with a resounding defeat in a state election and its main ally wavering over support for the government.
Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) plummeted nearly 12 percentage points from 2014 to 21.8 percent in an election for state assembly in the eastern state of Thuringia, according to preliminary results published early yesterday.
At the same time, the populist right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party more than doubled its standing and marginally beat the CDU at 23.4 percent.
The Social Democrats (SPD), Merkel’s junior coalition partner, also lost ground, shedding about 4 percentage points to 8.2 percent.
As a result, the incumbent Left party, which won the election with 31 percent, would no longer have sufficient support to govern Thuringia with its current alliance that also includes the Greens.
The result in the eastern German state reflects the increasingly splintered political spectrum in Germany, where traditional centrist parties have been losing steadily.
The refugee crisis, climate protests, and more recently an economic slowdown and geopolitical tension in Europe’s backyard have fueled rifts among and even within political parties.
“Since 1949, we have not had such a result, where the parties of the democratic center in Germany are unable to form a government,” CDU candidate Mike Mohring told reporters in Erfurt on Sunday night. “This is a really bitter result.”
It is the latest sign of trouble for Merkel in the twilight of her chancellorship. Europe’s largest economy has slowed sharply and is forecast to rise only 0.5 percent this year, from 2.5 percent two years ago.
At the same time, her designated successor, Minister of Defense Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has failed to gain traction in her party, while repeatedly stumbling as she seeks to win back voters from the far-right.
Kramp-Karrenbauer, who replaced Merkel as chief of the CDU late last year, fueled animosity in the coalition when she proposed a peacekeeping force for northern Syria involving German troops without consulting the SPD.
“Given the strong showing by the far right, the CDU debate about the best path into the post-Merkel world is set to continue,” Carsten Nickel, analyst at Teneo Intelligence in London, wrote in a research note.
On Saturday, the SPD failed to end months of debate over whether to leave government. Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz, the only candidate who unequivocally backed staying in government, won a first-round party leadership ballot, but had only a narrow margin over the runner-up.
Taken together, various candidates of the leftist camp that favor easing Germany’s fiscal rigor and exiting the coalition got more than half of the vote, versus Scholz’s 22.7 percent. The run-off vote is scheduled to conclude on Nov. 30 and the party is to decide in December whether to stay in the coalition.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to