BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partners gave her conservatives until next year to deliver more policy results, threatening to end their alliance if there is no improvement after both parties suffered in a regional election on Sunday.
Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) came home first in the election in the western state of Hesse, but polled just 28 percent of the vote, an exit poll for broadcaster ARD showed. That marked a huge drop from the 38.3 percent the CDU won at the last Hesse election, in 2013.
The center-left Social Democrats (SPD) fared even worse, winning just 20 percent of the vote, down from 30.7 percent and its worst result in the western state since 1946. The party just managed to beat the Greens, who placed third with 19.5 percent.
SPD leader Andrea Nahles said she would use a roadmap with which to measure the progress of the ruling coalition, which has been plagued by infighting, at a mid-term review next year.
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