No Script

Please Wait...

Al-Ahed Telegram

EU Vote Debacle Leaves Merkel’s Coalition with New Headache

EU Vote Debacle Leaves Merkel’s Coalition with New Headache
folder_openEurope... access_time4 years ago
starAdd to favorites

By Staff, Agencies

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition took a fresh knock on Sunday with historic low scores at European elections, exit polls showed, raising questions on whether it could survive the latest body blow.

While the list of Merkel’s center-right bloc led by ally Manfred Weber was on course to top the vote with around 28 percent, according to two separate exit polls by national broadcasters ARD and ZDF, the score was eight percentage points off its previous low.

The evening turned out even more disastrous for Merkel’s junior coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party [SPD], which was not only toppled from second place at European polls by the Greens, but also suffered a humiliating loss at state elections in its stronghold Bremen.

Meanwhile, the Greens more than doubled its share of the vote, winning over from Merkel’s CDU-CSU bloc more than a million voters who brought to the ballot boxes their demands for more action to halt global warming.

Relatively, the far-right AfD, which hoped to ride on a wave of nationalism sweeping across Europe, only slightly improved its 2014 score of 7.1 percent to just past 10 percent.

Merkel and the chief of her Bavarian CSU allies Markus Soeder as well as SPD boss Andrea Nahles are due to hold talks on Monday to take stock of EU poll results.

Comments