German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party clinched a significant number of votes in a state poll in Saarland on Saturday as the elections year in the country begins. Merkel, later this year, will seek a fourth term in a nation vote.
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Merkel's party Christian Democratic Union (CDU) easily beat their Centre-Left rival, the Social Democrats (SD), in the state poll, which was seen as the latter's first electoral test since pitting their candidate Martin Schulz against Merkel for the chancellery position. The German federal elections are scheduled for September 24, 2017.
Schulz's party had seen a boost in the poll rating ever since his nomination. However, the party did not win enough support for a new Left-wing government in the region of nearly 1 million people on the French border, according to the Associated Press. The state poll was being seen as a bellwether for the upcoming national elections.
Schulz, former president of the European Parliament, announced his candidature in January and a rising popularity of the Social Democrats, particularly among the younger voters, since Schulz's nomination was being termed as the "Schulz effect."
However, Conservative governor Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer seemed to have brought the Schulz phenomenon to a screeching halt.
The CDU got 40.7 percent of votes in the election for Saarland's state legislature, while SD managed a meagre 29.6 percent of the votes.
"In uncertain times, people trust the political force that governs reliably," said Peter Tauber, the general secretary of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. "The CDU is the only political force that distanced itself clearly from working with the populists of left and right."
Saarland is currently run by a "grand coalition" of the conservatives and the Social Democrats, reflecting Merkel's alliance in Berlin. However, the Sunday elections results showed that no such coalition is possible now.
"This is a great start to the election year 2017," said Michael Grosse-Broemer, the CDU's chief whip in Berlin.
