Voters went to the polls on Sunday in a legislative election in the German state of Hamburg, where the Social Democratic Party (SPD) is hoping to retain its absolute majority, dpa reported. Polls suggest that Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) will come a distant second in the port city, which has some 1.3 million registered voters. The centre-left SPD - her coalition partner in the federal government - are forecast to garner up to 47 per cent of votes, enough for the city's popular mayor, Olaf Scholz, to be reappointed by the state assembly for five more years. Should he fall short of an absolute majority, Scholz has said he will invite the environmentalist Green Party to form a coalition. The Greens are likely to command 12 per cent of votes. Television channels are scheduled to report exit polls when voting ends at 6 pm (1700 GMT), and are expected to provide reliable vote-count projections within the hour.
