Angela Merkel's Bavarian allies suffer worst election result since 1950

Angela Merkel’s Bavarian allies became the latest European party to be caught up in the political upheaval sweeping the continent as they suffered historic losses in regional elections on Sunday. 

The Christian Social Union (CSU), which has ruled Bavaria for more than 60 years, recorded its worst result since 1950 and will be forced to find a coalition partner if it is to remain in power.

But for once it was not the populist Right that inflicted the heaviest wounds, but the centre-Left in the form of the Green Party which more than doubled its vote. 

The results will send shockwaves through Mrs Merkel’s already fragile coalition government, and add to growing calls within her own party for the veteran chancellor to stand down.

But it was also a disappointing night for the nationalist Alternative for Germany party (AfD), who had hoped to make their first major inroads in a west German state, but could only manage fourth place.

“This is not an easy day for the CSU. This is a painful result,” Markus Söder, the party’s regional leader said. “We have to learn the lessons of this result.”

“The people of Bavaria have said things cannot go on as they are,” Robert Habeck, the Green Party leader said. “This is a demand for change.”

Initial exit polls had the CSU on 35.7 per cent, compared to 47.7 per cent five years ago. The Greens were second on 18.7 per cent, followed by the Free Voters, a local interest party, on 11.6 per cent and the AfD on 11.1 per cent.

Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) do not compete in Bavaria, leaving the state to their more conservative local allies in the CSU.

But the results were grim for her coalition government: her main partner, the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD), scraped in in fifth place with a disastrous 9.5 per cent.

The debacle was widely seen as a sign of voters’ discontent with a government that has been paralysed by months of in-fighting between coalition partners over migrant policy.

But Mrs Merkel may be able to use to the success of the Greens to silence her party critics who want to take the CDU to the Right to head off the challenge from the AfD.

That was a tactic that clearly fell flat for her Bavarian allies, and the election results could be gamechanging for German politics. 

For the past year, the battleground has been shifting to the Right and it has been the AfD who have drivem the agenda. But the success of the Greens proves it is possible to mount a challenge from the centre-Left.

The AfD attempted to put a successful gloss on its performance. Jörg Meuthen, the party’s national spokesman, descrived it as a “terrific night.” 

But the result fell short of the party’s hopes in one of Germany’s most conservative states. So far the AfD’s major successes have been in the former communist east. If it is to make a serious challenge for power, it will have to make inroads in the more populous west — and Bavaria was a key target.

The clearest loser of the night was Horst Seehofer, the CSU’s national leader, who is thought unlikely to survive.

It was Mr Seehofer, as interior minister, who took Mrs Merkel’s government to the brink of collapse in the summer when he demanded a change in migrant policy.

The move was widely seen as an attempt to bolster the CSU vote ahead of the elections, but it backfired spectacularly and sent the CSU into free fall in the polls.

Mr Söder, the party’s regional leader and Mr Seehofer’s most likely successor, pledged last night (SUN) to open negotiations on forming a coalition government for Bavaria.