Akhir 22, 1432 H/March 27, 2011, SPA -- Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition suffered bruising losses in two state legislative elections in Germany Sunday, losing control of the main prize, Baden-Wuerttemberg state, provisional results showed, according to dpa. In the large and prosperous south-western state, Merkel's Christian Democrats ended a 58-year winning streak, gaining only 39 per cent of the ballots, a 5-percentage-point loss of vote share. The Green Party was set to nominate its first state premier in German history. The environmentalists won about 24.2 per cent, enough to rule Baden-Wuerttemberg in a coalition with the Social Democrats, who won 23.1 per cent. Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle's Free Democratic Party (FDP) had its vote share halved to 5.3 per cent, compared to five years ago. The Green-SPD coalition won 71 of 138 legislature seats. The government parties' loss of the state will allow the opposition even greater control of the Bundesrat, the upper chamber of the German federal parliament, representing the 16 state government. That will make it harder than ever for Merkel to push through federal legislation. "It's an historic electoral win," Winfried Kretschmann, the state Green leader, told cheering, chanting supporters in Stuttgart. "After the polarization of this election campaign, we'll try to unify people ... and lead them in the Green direction." The state's CDU premier, Stefan Mappus, conceded defeat, blaming public alarm over the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. "In the last 14 days we had the problem that after various tough issues last year, we had these dreadful images from Japan too," he said in a TV news programme. One-sixth of Germans live in the two states that voted Sunday. The polls were seen as the principal electoral test for Merkel this year. She offered no immediate public comment on the setback. In the smaller state of Rhineland Palatinate, voters punished the FDP, the junior party in the Merkel federal coalition, rather than the CDU, which raised its vote share slightly to 35.2 per cent, provisional final results showed. The FDP obtained just 4.2 per cent of the vote and were denied any seats under a German rule denying access to legislatures of parties that fail to garner at least 5 per cent of the vote. The incumbent Social Democrats won only 35.7 per cent of the state vote, a slump of 9 percentage points compared to five years ago. But the state's SPD premier, Kurt Beck, was expected to remain in power, from now on in coalition with the high-riding Greens, who quadrupled their support to 15.4 per cent of state ballots. The poll result marked a new political era, elevating the Greens, formerly a bit player in state politics, to a status equal to the Social Democrats. The Green Party advocates a massive conversion to renewable energy and some rises in taxes to fund education, but its economic and foreign policies are close to those of the other main parties. A majority of Germans hope for an early closedown of Germany's 17 nuclear power sites, surveys have showed. The Merkel government vainly tried to tame public anger over the issue by ordering an energy-policy review and a three-month moratorium on plans to extend the legal lifetime of the newer nuclear plants. Sigmar Gabriel, national leader of the Social Democrats, said, "Today was the death sentence for nuclear power in Germany. There is no going back." The collapse in FDP support reflects the sharp decline in the pro- business party's standing which set in a year ago. Westerwelle has faced low popularity ratings and negative media coverage ever since he entered the Merkel cabinet in late 2009. He admitted the state results were a serious blow but rejected calls to resign.
