Angela Merkel’s party could lose Baden-Württemberg to the state’s governing party of Greens in the crucial regional election, according to the latest opinion poll that was published in Bild newspaper Tuesday, three weeks before the vote. Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) hopes to win back Baden-Württemberg in the March 13 vote, but a poll by Bild the Greens currently hold the lead. They have 30.5 percent support to CDU’s 30 percent. The Social Democrats (SPD), the CDU’s junior coalition partners in the federal government but allies of the Greens in Baden-Württemberg, were in third place with 16 percent. Baden-Württemberg is Germany’s third largest state in terms of size and population. It has traditionally been run by been CDU-led, but in 2011 a coalition of the Greens and SPD replaced the CDU for the first time since 1952. Right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) would get 10 percent of the vote, passing the 5 percent threshold to enter the parliament. AfD, founded in 2013, already has representatives in 5 parliaments of the 16 German states. * [French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras meet on the second day of the European Summit] Also On Politico BREXIT IS SIDESHOW TO ANGELA MERKEL’S REFUGEE DRAMA Matthew Karnitschnig In addition to Baden-Württemberg, two other states, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt, are also holding election. Election in all three states is seen as a vote of confidence on Merkel’s open-doors policy on refugees from Syria and other war zones. In Rhineland-Palatinate, where the SPD and Greens are currently in power, the CDU is leading the polls with 35 percent, followed by the SPD with 33 percent. In Saxony-Anhalt, where there is currently a CDU-SPD grand coalition, the CDU is comfortably in the lead with 30 percent while the AfD has overtaken the SPD into second place, with 17 percent against the SPD’s 16 percent.
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