Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and their Social Democrat coalition allies in Berlin both lost significant support in a regional election in the western state of Hesse on Sunday, dealing a fresh blow to the fragile national government.
Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats came home first but polled just 28 percent of the vote, an exit poll showed. That marked a huge drop from the 38.3 percent the CDU won at the last Hesse election, in 2013.
This morning the German Chancellor announced that she will not stand for re-election as leader of the CDU at the next election. She has been chancellor for 13 years and wants to stay in that post.
The result means the anti-immigration party, which entered the federal parliament for the first time last year, is now also represented in all 16 German regional assemblies.