HAMBURG, Germany (AFP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives suffered a setback Sunday as state elections in Hamburg confirmed a swing to the left among voters ahead of national elections in 2009.
Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) remain the largest party, but a fall to 42.6 percent of the vote from 47 percent cost it the overall majority in the wealthy northern city state, official preliminary results showed.
Responsible was a swing among voters both to the left-wing Social Democrats (SPD), the CDU's coalition partner at national level, as well as to the far-left who were set to fill seats in Hamburg's legislature for the first time.
The SPD increased their share of the vote to 34.1 percent from 30.5 percent in Hamburg -- which used to be their stronghold before the 2004 vote -- while The Left won 6.4 percent.
The Greens came in at 9.6 percent and the conservatives confirmed on Sunday night that they were looking to share power with them in Hamburg in a coalition never seen before at regional or national level in Germany.
"I think it could be good for Hamburg and for the political constellation in Germany to try a new partnership with the Greens here," CDU secretary general Roland Pofalla said.
The move was mooted before the election and looked likely Sunday after the liberal Free Democrats, the conservatives' traditional first choice as coalition partners, narrowly missed the required five percent needed to get into the legislature.
Hamburg's CDU mayor Ole von Beust confirmed he was ready to team up with anyone to lock The Left -- a raggle-taggle of former East German communists and SPD defectors -- out of government.
"We will keep the communists and the left-wing radicals out of government in Hamburg," von Beust vowed.
Sunday's setback for the conservatives in Hamburg came a month after they bled support in elections in the western state of Hesse as a hardline campaign backfired and voters swung to the left and the far-left.
The Left has won seats in three other western German legislatures in the past year and its success, notably in Hesse, risks redrawing Germany's political landscape.
The leftward swing has been driven by widespread discontent with the wealth gap, likely to be exacerbated by shock revelations that rich Germans evaded hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) in taxes by squirrelling away money in secret trusts in Liechtenstein.
The regional polls suggests that Merkel, who has governed in an acrimonious national coalition with the SPD since 2005, will struggle to secure a clear majority in the national ballot next year.
But it is not just the conservatives that are in turmoil.
The run-up to the Hamburg vote saw the SPD riven by infighting over plans in Hesse to form a regional government with the support of The Left.
A survey published by Bild am Sonntag newspaper said SPD supporters were so strongly opposed to a pact with the ex-communists in Hesse that one in four would demand party chief Kurt Beck's departure.
The SPD's leader in Hamburg, Michael Naumann, on Sunday night reiterated that he would rather remain in opposition than rule with The Left.
"There will be no coalition, no cooperation and no understanding with The Left in Hamburg," he told supporters.
The debacle in Hesse has given Merkel an opportunity to needle Beck and her ultra-conservative ally Erwin Huber has warned: "The SPD is playing with fire."
The Left is currently trying to live down an embarrassing call by one of its regional MPs in Lower Saxony this month for the feared East German secret police, the Stasi, to be brought back.
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