Bruising in Bavaria for troubled Merkel

published 19 October 2018

The Christian Social Union (CSU) "has dominated Bavarian politics for six decades", says Jon Henley in The Guardian. The party, which operates only in Bavaria and is the sister party of chancellor Angela Merkel's nationwide Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has won absolute majorities in 12 of the past 13 state-level elections.

But on Sunday, the CSU suffered huge losses, seeing its vote slump by more than ten percentage points. The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) which is in coalition with the CDU and CSU in the national parliament also saw its vote halve. The big winners were the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which will enter the state parliament for the first time, and the "EU-loving, refugee-welcoming Greens", who doubled their share.

This result "has made the premature end of Merkel's governing coalition much more likely", says Christian Teevs in Der Spiegel. It shows "how fragile the major parties' foundations have become". Combined, the CDU, CSU and SPD only have "a razor-thin majority in recent nationwide polls".

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If Merkel goes, this could be bad news, since she "remains Europe's indispensable leader" says Bloomberg. Even if she stays, a diminished chancellor "bodes ill for the west". Liberal democracy is "in retreat worldwide" while the European Union is "challenged by an erratic American partner and rising right-wing populism in Italy, Hungary and Poland, as well as in Germany itself". It must be hoped that she can "stop the rot" since "a divided, leaderless government in Berlin is the last thing Germany, or Europe, needs".

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri