Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right bloc suffered another stinging defeat on Sunday in a regional election in Germany's poorest state, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, with both her conservatives and their Free Democrat allies losing support, according to Reuters. With the euro zone crisis looming, Merkel's Christian Democrats fell to 23.3 percent from 28.8 percent in 2006, according to a TV projection. It was the CDU's worst-ever showing in the sparsely populated state on the Baltic shore. "We're disappointed that the CDU lost so much support," said Peter Altmaier, a senior CDU lawmaker in Berlin and close ally of Merkel. Altmaier said the CDU was in a difficult spot nationally due in part to the euro zone sovereign debt crisis. The Free Democrats (FDP) were only an opposition party in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern assembly but crashed out with a result below the 5 percent threshold -- just 2.8 percent, from 9.6 percent in 2006. The result may raise pressure on the FDP to dump unpopular Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. "There's no reason to throw in the towel now even though this defeat has a bitter taste," said FDP deputy party leader Christian Lindner, trying to douse speculation about Westerwelle. "No one should write off the FDP. We're going to fight." Worries about the prolonged euro zone crisis cast a shadow over the campaign ahead of a crucial vote in the Berlin parliament on euro zone bailout reforms in late September.
