BERLIN, Jan 18: German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives clinched a decisive win in a state election on Sunday, preliminary results showed, at the start of a super voting year expected to propel her to a second term.

Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) captured around 37 per cent of the poll in the western state of Hesse, home to Germany’s finance capital of Frankfurt, according to provisional official results.

They trounced the rival centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), who suffered a record defeat with just 23.5 per cent of the vote, a slump of around 13 points, eight months before Germany holds a general election.

The CDU’s coalition partner of choice, the pro-business Free Democrats, had a triumphant result with about 16 per cent of the vote – a seven-point gain – paving the way for the two parties to take control of the state legislature.

The ecologist Greens won about 14 per cent while the far-left Die Linke scored around five per cent.

Some 4.4 million people were called to the ballot boxes and polls had predicted a clear win for Merkel’s party.

Her conservatives and the SPD have been bound together at the national level in a fractious ‘grand coalition’ since 2005 and are now together grappling with the country’s worst post-war recession.

But with 16 elections planned this year on the regional, state, national and European level, the trick has been to press on with the business of running Europe’s biggest economy at the same time they go head-to-head at the polls.

Despite criticism of Merkel’s initially tentative reaction to the crippling slowdown, the Hesse outcome showed that the CDU appears not to be paying the price with voters, thanks largely to internal squabbling among the SPD.

CDU general secretary Ronald Pofalla said the conservatives were now well-placed to become the top party in the September 27 general election.

“The result shows clearly that the CDU is the party of the political centre,” Pofalla told ARD public television.

“With regard to this election year, we have every chance at the federal level to win more than 40 per cent.”

Merkel and her SPD challenger in September, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, are being forced to walk a tightrope during this super election year.

The two came together at a news conference and before parliament this week to defend a new $66 billion economic stimulus package thrashed out by their two sides in a bid to pull the economy out of the mire.

The SPD’s chief candidate, Andrea Ypsilanti, aimed to form a coalition with the Greens but also rely on the far-left party Die Linke for votes – breaking a campaign pledge not to work with the outfit.

The bid failed when four rogue Social Democrats withdrew their support, saying their consciences would not allow them to vote for the new government.

The SPD’s dealings with the Die Linke, a loose-knit grouping of former East German communists and disaffected Social Democrats, have prompted an identity crisis for the party, leading last year to the ouster of its chief Kurt Beck.

Steinmeier has ruled out working with the Die Linke at the federal level but has given his blessing to link-ups in the 16 states.

—AFP