Merkel's CDU wins in German state but allies out

[reorg]

Source: swissinfo.ch (Swiss Broadcasting Corporation)

BERLIN (Reuters) - Angela Merkel's conservatives won Sunday's election in the tiny state of Saarland but her Free Democrat (FDP) allies crashed out of the local assembly with just 1.2 percent, continuing a dismal run which has weakened her centre-right German government. ...

The CDU got 35.2 percent in the western state of 1 million people, slightly more than the last state election in 2009. They were ahead of the centre-left SPD, who had been neck-and-neck with the CDU in polls ahead of the vote but managed just 30.6 percent, the official results showed.

But Merkel's junior coalition partners on the national stage, the FDP, did even worse than the most pessimistic forecasts. With 1.2 percent - way under the 5 percent threshold for getting seats in the state assembly - they plummeted from their previous 9.2 percent. ...

The SPD has ruled out a coalition in Saarland with the far-left Linke, who were represented in the state by party patriarch and former finance minister Oskar Lafontaine and got 16.1 percent.

The Greens took 5 percent, down slightly from the last state vote, and the fast-growing Pirate party entered the assembly for the first time with 7.4 percent. The Pirates stormed onto the German political scene last year by seizing 8.9 percent of votes for Berlin's city assembly ...

Read more: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/international/Merkels_CDU_wins_in_German_state_but_allies_out.html?cid=32356892

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Results:

CDU: 35.2
SPD: 30.6
Left Party: 16.1
Pirate Party 7.4
Greens: 5.0
FDP: 1.2
Others: 4.5

[Dawson Leery]

1. The right wing FDP has been dropping everywhere in Germany.

"The FDP has now dropped out of five state assemblies up and down the country and risks further humiliation in two more state elections in May, in Schleswig-Holstein and in Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW)."

[lovuian]

4. Merkel is losing more and more power

here is the evidence

[HereSince1628]

2. Pirate Party? Arrrgh!

Geeks actually party????

[JDPriestly]

3. What is the Pirate Party?

The party supports the preservation of current civil rights in telephony and on the Internet; in particular, it opposes the European data retention policies.

The party favors the civil right to information privacy and reforms of copyright, education, genetic patents and drug policy.

It promotes in particular an enhanced transparency of government by implementing open source governance and providing for APIs to allow for electronic inspection and monitoring of government operations by the citizen.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party_Germany

That's what we need here: a Pirate Party.

[burrowowl]

5. The non-conservatives

are leading

[David__77]

6. Die Linke is the only progressive choice for Germans.

That the "Social" Democrats see the genuine left as a bigger danger than the fascist right is very telling.