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Stuttgart / Mainz (dpa) - In the first state elections in the super election year 2021, losses for the CDU of Chancellor Angela Merkel are becoming apparent.

According to surveys, the Greens and their Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann are heading for a clear victory this Sunday in Baden-Württemberg.

In Rhineland-Palatinate, the ruling Social Democrats headed by Prime Minister Malu Dreyer are the favorites.

The state elections serve as a mood test before the federal elections on September 26th.

The Union is facing a big damper because, according to surveys, the CDU could achieve the worst result in its history in both countries.

The new CDU federal chairman Armin Laschet has stated several times that, from his point of view, the elections are primarily about state politics.

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But the Union had not cut a good figure at the federal level recently.

Several members of the Bundestag are suspected of corruption because they are said to have earned hundreds of thousands of euros in commission from doing business with masks.

Others are about donations from the autocratic oil state Azerbaijan.

There was also massive criticism of the CDU federal ministers Jens Spahn and Peter Altmaier because of the slow start with the corona vaccinations, the mass tests and the payment of emergency aid to companies and the self-employed.

In addition, there is the unresolved question of power as to who will be the candidate for chancellor in the federal election in the autumn: Laschet, who has only been in office for a few weeks, or CSU boss Markus Söder?

Chancellor Angela Merkel, the longest-serving head of government in the EU, had already declared in 2018 that she no longer wanted to run after four terms in office.

In Baden-Württemberg, according to the latest polls, the Greens can count on a lead of seven to ten points over the Union.

The CDU with its top candidate Susanne Eisenmann therefore has to adjust to the worst result in the history of the country in its former stronghold.

The Christian Democrats hope that the Greens will continue the coalition with them.

But Kretschmann could also try a traffic light with the SPD and FDP.

Even a two-party alliance with the liberals is therefore within reach.

It would be a completely new "lime" coalition.

Kretschmann is the first and only head of government of the Greens in Germany, the 72-year-old has been in power for ten years.

In Rhineland-Palatinate, the SPD, with Dreyer, who has ruled for eight years, has caught up with the CDU in surveys and is now predominantly ahead in the surveys.

The CDU with its top candidate Christian Baldauf, on the other hand, threatens the worst result for the Christian Democrats in the state.

The 53-year-old had a hard time scoring points against the cross-party popular Dreyer during the election campaign under massive corona restrictions.

Although the SPD also has one of the worst election results in decades, the continuation of the traffic light coalition of the SPD, FDP and the Greens that Dreyer is striving for seems feasible - it is the only such alliance in Germany and, according to Dreyer, a model for the federal government .

For 30 years now, the Social Democrats have been the heads of government in the country shaped by Helmut Kohl and Bernhard Vogel - longer than in any other western federal state.

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A “Jamaica” coalition “black-yellow-green” led by the CDU is unlikely.

At first it was on the brink of whether the free voters would crack the five percent hurdle and move into the Mainz state parliament for the first time.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210312-99-797038 / 2

Baden-Württemberg state parliament for election

Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate for election