Merkel loses another battle in German power struggle

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives looked set to lose power in a major regional stronghold yesterday after governing there for almost 60 years.

In Baden-Württemberg, where anti-nuclear sentiment has been mobilised by Japan’s nuclear crisis, early election results suggested the Greens and Social Democrats (SPD) were set to win 48.3%, eclipsing the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Merkel’s CDU and their Free Democrat Party (FDP) coalition partners, big backers of nuclear power, won a combined 43.2%, according to the first projections after polls closed at 4pm.

“It’s very painful,” said Merkel’s education minister Annette Schavan, a CDU leader in Baden-Württemberg.

The CDU, which has governed the state for 58 years, took 38.2% and the FDP 5%. The Greens finished second with 24.9% and the SPD, their likely allies, took 23.4%.

The Greens’ 13% advance was mirrored in another state election yesterday in Rhineland-Palatinate, where the SPD held on to power and was likely to form a coalition with the Greens.

Economy minister Rainer Bruedele of the FDP, called his party’s ejection from Rhineland-Palatinate’s assembly a “bitter defeat” and blamed “events in Japan, war in Libya and the euro debate”.

Last month Merkel’s conservatives were ousted in Hamburg in a state election and lost control of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, last May.

She has already lost her majority in the upper house of parliament, where the 16 states are represented, and further gains for the opposition mean her ability to pass some legislation will be severely limited.

Merkel’s policy U-turns on nuclear power, military action in Libya and the eurozone debt crisis turned the closely-watched Baden-Württemberg contest into a virtual referendum on the performance of her centre-right government.

Stuttgart banker Lienhard Bauer said: “This is the beginning of the end for Merkel. I’ve been a CDU party member for more than 30 years but I didn’t vote CDU this time.”

After her SPD predecessor as chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, lost North Rhine-Westphalia in 2005, he called a snap election and lost.

Anti-nuclear sentiment and criticism of Merkel’s confused stance were big issues in a state where environmentalist support has been steadily rising for a number of months.