- BERLIN: An exit poll indicates Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party has suffered a crushing defeat in Hamburg’s state election after 10 years in power there.
An ARD television exit poll indicated Merkel’s Christian Democrats won only 20.5 percent of Sunday’s vote, sharply down from 42.1 percent in 2008.
The poll sees the Social Democrats triumphant with 49.5 percent, up from 34.1 percent, virtually securing them an absolute majority in the state legislature. The Greens gained 2 percent, standing at 11.5 percent.
The poll sees the pro-business Free Democrats, Merkel’s junior partner in the federal government, at 6.5 percent, and the Left Party stands at 7 percent.
The vote came as a test for Merkel’s conservatives at the outset of a series of seven such votes this year.
