Merkel's party suffers worst ever result in Hamburg state elections

Voters handed German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives their worst-ever result in Hamburg on Sunday, punishing them for flirting with the far-right in an eastern state and descending into a messy leadership battle.

According to Press TV, preliminary results also showed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) just scraping into the Hamburg parliament, only four days after a racist gunman killed 11 people, including himself, in the western town of Hanau.

The Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens celebrated in Germany's second-biggest city after taking first and second place, meaning they will probably keep ruling together in the northern port and city-state.

The conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) suffered after party leader and Merkel protegee Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said she would stand aside, blowing open the race to succeed the chancellor and throwing the party into turmoil.

The CDU slipped into third place, scoring just 11.2%. The AfD, which has capitalized on anger over Merkel's open-door migrant policy, especially in the former Communist East, won 5.3%, just over the 5% threshold needed to get into the state parliament, according to the preliminary results.

Kramp-Karrenbauer's move came after an eastern branch of the CDU defied the national party and voted with the AfD to install a state premier from a third party - breaking a postwar consensus among established parties of shunning the far-right.

"It is a bitter day for the CDU in Germany and a historically bad result in Hamburg," said CDU Secretary General Paul Ziemiak.

The CDU leadership team meets on Monday and Kramp-Karrenbauer is expected to set out a timetable for a decision on the party chair and possibly the chancellor candidate. Four or five candidates are jockeying for the jobs.

ME