Merkel’s Party wins German state election, blunting projected opposition surge

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party clinched a significant number of votes in a state poll in Saarland on Saturday as the elections year in the country begins. The ruling CDU is holding onto Saarland for a fourth consecutive term and was even able to bolster its numbers by 5%, going from 35,2% in 2012 to 40,1% in 2017.

The September face-off between a policeman’s son and a pastor’s daughter could well prove to be a most keenly fought electoral battle in Berlin in decades among the Social Democrats (SDP) and the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Voting in Saarland ran until 6pm local time yesterday, after which exit polls were to be released.

In Saarland, Kramp-Karrenbauer deployed a trusted CDU attack line: a warning that a victorious SPD would open a path to a government including the Left.

That appeared highly unlikely, as the opposition Left Party – which is traditionally strong in the region – won some 13 percent and the left-leaning Greens looked set to fall short of the five percent needed to keep its seats.

Polls close at 16:00 GMT in Saarland – a state with one million inhabitants.

The CDU – along with its partner, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) – and the SPD are tied at 33 per cent in the voter surveys at this point in the election cycle.

However far-right populist Geert Wilders was soundly beaten by Conservative Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Dutch election earlier in March – which was seen as a test of populist right-wing sentiment ahead of the French presidential vote in April and September’s German election.

Under Dr Merkel, Germany has enjoyed economic growth and high employment but the gap between rich and poor has grown.

There is much for middle-class voters to like in Schulz.

For Merkel, the result was a victory for a popular state leader who sits on the CDU’s national leadership board and has broadly backed her open-borders refugee policy.

The first daughter will join four other U.S. delegates at the W20 summit that promotes economic participation of women in G20 member states.

“Whoever then wants to govern with us, is very welcome to come to us”. Pre-election polls had shown a tighter race after Martin Schulz, a former European Parliament president, emerged in January as the Social Democrat challenger.