Chancellor Olaf Scholz is digesting a major defeat after his Social Democrats were comfortably beaten into second place in North Rhine-Westphalia. He now needs a favor from the surging Green Party.
BERLIN (Reuters) - An election in Germany's most populous state on Sunday poses an early test for Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats five months after he took office with a domestic policy focus that was quickly eclipsed by the war in Ukraine.
EXPLAINED: Why Sunday s state parliament vote in NRW is important for German politics thelocal.de - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thelocal.de Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Some 13 million people have been called on to choose a new state-level legislature, the results of which will be seen as an appraisal of the performance of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's ruling coalition.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) suffered a crushing defeat in a key German regional election on Sunday, exit polls showed, in a damning verdict on his perceived weak response to the war…