(ANSA-AFP) - HANNOVER, OCT 10 - Germany's Social Democrats on
Sunday won a closely-fought regional election that was dominated
by worries over soaring energy costs, giving Chancellor Olaf
Scholz a welcome boost as a difficult winter looms. Scholz's
centre-left SPD was set to remain the largest force in the
coastal state of Lower Saxony, taking around 32.7-33.3 percent
of the vote, according to exit polls by public broadcasters ARD
and ZDF. The conservative CDU party of former chancellor Angela
Merkel came a distant second at 27.5 percent, its worst result
in the state in six decades. The election was widely billed as a
key test of Scholz's handling of the energy crisis caused by
Russia's war in Ukraine. The outcome marks a turnaround after
his SPD lost the last two regional polls to the CDU, in North
Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein. The Greens, Scholz's
coalition partners on the federal level, surged to around 14
percent, their best-ever showing in the state. The far-right AfD
also had reason to cheer, nearly doubling its result from five
years ago and climbing to almost 12 percent as it capitalised on
voter anger over the rising cost of living. The AfD "is a
protest party" that benefits from "crisis and fears", political
scientist Karl-Rudolf Korte told ZDF. The liberal FDP, Scholz's
third coalition partner in Berlin, appears to have only narrowly
scraped the five-percent threshold required to enter into the
regional parliament, according to the preliminary results. -
'Referendum' - The Lower Saxony election was "very important"
for Scholz, Korte told ZDF, calling it "a referendum" on the
federal government's handling of myriad crises since coming to
power almost a year ago. Russia's war in Ukraine has sent energy
costs soaring, pushing German inflation to a record-high of 10
percent in September and fuelling fears of a looming recession
in Europe's top economy. Support for Scholz's SPD has fallen
below 20 percent in national opinion polls, well behind the CDU
in first place. Scholz's own popularity ratings have also taken
a hit. Lower Saxony's incumbent premier Stephan Weil from the
SPD, whose popularity with local residents played a large role
in Sunday's victory, said he was "relieved" his party had a
clear mandate to govern in Lower Saxony. (ANSA-AFP).
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