The right gains clout in Germany

BERLIN (AP) — Germans handed a lackluster victory to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and a historically heavy defeat to their center-left rivals in Sunday’s European Parliament vote, months before a national election.

The outcome, a center-right majority, was enough to boost Merkel’s hopes of ending the tense left-right “grand coalition” that has led the European Union’s most populous nation since 2005 and replacing it with a center-right government.

It also showed that Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier — her center-left challenger — faces a steep uphill struggle to oust the popular Merkel in the Sept. 27 national election.

“We can build on this result for the German parliamentary election,” said Ronald Pofalla, general secretary of Merkel’s party. “People have confidence in Angela Merkel and the (Christian Democratic) Union in the crisis.”

Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and its Bavaria-only sister, the Christian Social Union, won 37.8 percent of the EU parliament vote, final official results showed. That was down from 44.5 percent five years ago.

Steinmeier’s Social Democrats won an unexpectedly dismal 20.8 percent — the party’s worst showing since World War II in any nationwide election. Their previous worst was 21.5 percent in the last EU vote, in 2004, when they led an unpopular center-left government.

Germany’s current “grand coalition” of the CDU and CSU with the Social Democrats is the result of an indecisive national election in 2005.

Both hope to end it this year. Merkel’s preferred future coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democrats, polled 11 percent on Sunday. That was a solid gain from 6.1 percent five years ago and, added to the conservative score, meant a center-right majority.

The Greens won 12.1 percent of the vote Sunday, very slightly better than in 2004. The opposition Left Party took 7.5 percent, a small gain.

Recent polls have suggested the Free Democrats are gaining support from conservative voters turned off by bank nationalizations and company bailouts.

Germany had a thoroughly lackluster European election campaign, with more attention going to government efforts, concluded last week, to put together a rescue package for General Motors Corp.’s Opel unit.

The Social Democrats’ strong push for the rescue and their sympathy for government aid for other struggling companies — which few conservatives share — did not appear to impress voters.

“Germans are a people of savers” who suspect debts incurred to tackle the crisis will at some point result in higher taxes, said Tanja Boerzel, a political expert.

at Berlin’s Free University.

Merkel’s conservatives were expected to lose ground Sunday compared with 2004, but the Social Democrats expected at least some gains.

“This is a disappointing election result — there’s no talking around it,” Steinmeier told ARD.

Steinmeier, however, felt his party’s results in Germany’s own election will be better.

“In the German parliamentary election, almost twice as many people (will go) to the polls and the result will be different,” he insisted.

Germany, with some 82 million people, has 99 seats in the EU’s 736-seat parliament.

Merkel’s conservatives took 42 seats on Sunday — down from 49 in 2004 — and the Free Democrats 12, up from seven.

The Social Democrats held their 23 seats. The Greens won 14 and the Left Party eight, each gaining one seat.

Sunday’s turnout of 43.3 percent was barely above the 2004 level of 43 percent.