German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU loses Lower Saxony polls -Sunday Jan 20,2013

CDU loses Lower Saxony polls -Sunday Jan 20,2013

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has suffered a setback as her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was voted out of power in the state polls in Lower Saxony where the opposition alliance of SPD and Green Party has emerged victorious, months ahead of the general election in which she is seeking a third four-year term.(National Parliamentary polls in Germany are scheduled to take place in September)

The CDU lost 6.5 % of votes compared to the last election in 2008 and polled around 36 %.The SPD with its leading candidate, Mayor of Hannover Stephan Weil, received 32.6 per cent votes, 2.6 per cent more than the last election. 

The Green party emerged as the main winner of the election by capturing 13.6 per cent votes, 5.6 per cent more than 2008, its best result in a state election

The state had been ruled for the past ten years by the CDU in a coalition with the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), similar to Merkel's coalition government in Berlin.

The ruling coalition led by state Premier David McAllister and the opposition alliance of Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green party were initially running neck-and-neck with 67 seats each in the 135-seat state legislature in yesterday's polls.
However, the SPD and the Green party moved ahead of the ruling coalition and established a wafer thin majority of just one vote, which will give them the mandate to form the next government.