Eideard

Green Party supporters celebrate in Bremen
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Angela Merkel has been dealt another blow after support for her Christian Democratic Union party plunged once again – this time at regional elections in Bremen.

For the first time in state elections, the Green party won more votes than the CDU, capturing almost 23% of the vote on Sunday, according to an exit poll from German state television ARD. The Green surge, if confirmed by final results, means the party will continue to rule in coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD), who have been in charge of the north German city for 66 years.

While the Greens’ victory in the smallest of Germany’s 16 states will not directly affect the chancellor’s hold on the federal government, it is another symbolic black eye for Merkel and her party.

In Baden-Württemberg’s state election in March, the Christian Democrats were voted out of power for the first time in five decades. The anti-nuclear Greens became the strongest party there amid concerns over Germany’s atomic future following the Fukushima plant accident in Japan. The win will mean that Germany will have its first Green governor…

Sunday’s vote in Bremen marked the first time in German history that people between 16 and 18 were allowed to vote for their state legislature. Despite that effort to boost the vote, ARD estimated a turnout of 54%, down from 57% four years earlier.

I’m not close enough the streets of Germany to hazard an educated guess on how much of the vote embraced Green ideology and platform and how much was simple rejection of what the Conservative Christians have failed to achieve, have substituted for progress. But, given the diminishing turnout, I’d tend towards the latter sociology – rather than a mandate for eco victory. Yet.