Germany, Merkel increasingly weak: defeat in her Land

In the regional elections of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the CDU-CSU, the chancellor's party, suffered a serious setback, while its allies in the FDP can't even reach the minimum threshold for having their own representatives in the local parliament - Instead, they advance , the Social Democrats, the extreme left and the Greens.

Bad news for Angela Merkel: the chancellor's party, the CDU-CSU (conservative), suffered a sharp slowdown over the weekend in the elections held in the land of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Merkel comes from there, in the north-east of the country.
According to provisional data, provided by ARD television, the real winner of the consultation would be the Social Democratic Party (SPD), with 37% of the preferences and an increase of about 7 percentage points compared to the 2006 regional elections. The CDU-CSU, on the other hand , stops at 24%, behind by 4,8 points. The extreme left (Die Linke) takes home 18% of the votes, while the liberals (FDP), partners of the Christian Union of the CDU-CSU, freeze at the humiliating threshold of 3%, below that of 5%. , minimum to enter the regional parliament.
As for the Greens, they won 8,5% of the votes and for the first time they will sit in Merkel's land assembly. During the electoral campaign, the head of the outgoing regional government, Erwin Sellering (SPD), had refused to say whether he wanted to continue governing with the CDU. At this point he could ally with the far left and unload the conservatives.