BERLIN (Reuters) -- Voters dealt the parties of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s fractious centre-left coalition a sharp rebuke in the key states of Bavaria and Hesse on Sunday, with economic woes and migration fears boosting the opposition conservatives and the far right.
The elections saw the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party burst out of its post-industrial eastern strongholds to score its best-ever result in a western state, in Hesse, and come in second place in both states.
All three parties in Scholz’s federal coalition - his Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) - did worse than five years ago in the states that together account for around a quarter of the German population.
The FDP looked on track to fail to reach the 5% threshold to enter parliament in Bavaria, and possibly Hesse too.
Analysts said this would further stoke tensions in a coalition that has struggled to find common ground, with Scholz accused of failing to show the leadership needed to impose order and tackle crises, from the war in Ukraine to the green transition.
“If necessary the FDP needs to be ready to leave” the coalition, Thomas Kemmerich, head of the FDP in the eastern state of Thueringen that is to hold its own election next year, was quoted as saying by German media outlet The Pioneer. “This cannot be a taboo.”
Jens Spahn, a senior legislator for the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), said that rarely had a government been given such a comprehensive slapdown.
“And rarely has it been so clear: whether on migration, the economy or climate policy, people want a different politics,” Spahn said.
In Hesse, home to the glittering towers of financial capital Frankfurt, the CDU were forecast to get 34.6% of the vote for the state legislature, likely allowing them to govern for another term, projections for ARD state broadcaster at around 2200 CET showed.
The SPD’s 15.1% - down 4.7% on its 2018 results - was a personal blow to Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, whose campaign to head the state was dogged by criticism of her handling of a surge in irregular migration.
The failure of the far-left Left party to reach the 5% threshold necessary to remain in the state parliament in Hesse added to the broader shift to the right.