MERKEL’S PARTY dealt a blow in German state.
BERLIN — Voters in Germany’s most populous state on Sunday strengthened a regional government that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives had portrayed as irresponsibly spendthrift, inflicting a heavy defeat on the German leader’s party.
The center-left Social Democrats and Greens — Germany’s main opposition parties — won combined support of 50.4 percent in the election in North RhineWestphalia. That gave them a majority in the state legislature, which they narrowly missed in the last regional election two years ago.
Meanwhile, support for Merkel’s party plunged to 26.3 percent from 34.6 percent in 2010, its worst showing in the state since World War II.
The outcome boosted Germany’s center-left opposition as Merkel’s conservatives look toward national elections due late next year and the chancellor grapples with Europe’s persistent debt crisis.
“The likelihood has become significantly greater that the next chancellor will be a Social Democrat,” the opposition party’s general secretary, Andrea Nahles, proclaimed on ARD.
Still, the pro-market Free Democrats, Merkel’s struggling partners in the national government, performed respectably, polling 8.6 percent — a result that may help stabilize the party.
The state government of popular Social Democratic governor Hannelore Kraft had been favored to win, particularly after a much-criticized campaign by conservative challenger Norbert Roettgen, Merkel’s federal environment minister.
Even so, senior conservative lawmaker Peter Altmaier said that “this result exceeds our worst fears.”
“This is a crashing defeat for Mrs. Merkel and her minister,” Nahles said. The Social Democrats’ share of the vote climbed to 39.1 percent from 34.5 percent.
“The defeat is bitter, it is clear and it really hurts,” Roettgen said minutes after polls closed, announcing that he would give up the leadership of the Christian Democrats’ local branch. “This is, above all, my personal defeat.”
About 13.2 million people were eligible to vote in the western state, a traditional center-left stronghold that includes Cologne, Duesseldorf and the industrial Ruhr region. Turnout was barely changed at 59.6 percent.
The upstart Pirate Party, which has surged lately with a platform of near-total transparency and Internet freedom but lacks policies on many issues — including the debt crisis — entered its fourth state legislature with support of 7.8 percent.
Voters gave the hard-left Left Party, which thrived as a voice of protest over recent years, just 2.5 percent, ejecting it from the local parliament.
Sunday’s election came a week after Schleswig-holstein voted out a center-right coalition made up of the same parties as the national government, but failed to hand the main opposition parties a majority.
It also followed setbacks for Merkel’s austerity-led response to the eurozone debt crisis in French and Greek elections.
Sunday’s election — unlike North Rhine-westphalia’s last vote in 2010 — won’t change the national balance of power.
Two years ago, Merkel’s coalition lost the state after five years in power there. That erased the national government’s majority in the upper house of Parliament, which represents Germany’s 16 states, and its position there has since weakened further.