Angela Merkel's party is considering how to respond to historically poor election results in two federal states

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party is considering how to respond to historically poor election results in two federal states, which one party official called a "wake-up call", six months before national elections that will decide the chancellor heir.

The final results this morning confirmed that the center-right Christian Democratic Union was convincingly defeated in yesterday's elections by the parties of the two governors in power in those states - Winfrit Krečman from the Green Party in Baden-Württemberg and Mala Drejer from the center-left Social Democratic Party in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Angela Merkel's CDU lost the support of about eight percentage points in those two states that were once her strongholds but have long since escaped her control. The CDU won 24,1 percent of the vote in Baden-Württemberg and 27,7 percent in Rhineland-Palatinate, its worst results since World War II.

Angela Merkel's federal government is facing dissatisfaction over the slow start of vaccination in the country, while most restrictions remain in place and the number of coronavirus infections is rising again. Her centre-right block has also been hit in the past few weeks by allegations that several MPs profited from an agreement to procure masks at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The party has yet to decide who will run for Merkel's successor in the parliamentary elections on September 26. Merkel, who has been in power since 2005 and has attracted voters for a long time, will not run for a fifth term.

The results of the elections in the two federal states do not help the new leader of the CDU, Armin Laschet, who was elected to the post in January. He said he and Markus Zeder, leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), will decide in April or May who will run for the next chancellor.

Sunday's results are a "wake-up call for the entire CDU," senior lawmaker Norbert Retgen told the Rheinische Post newspaper. He said that such results cannot be explained only by the popularity of the governors of those two states from other parties.

"Time is pressing, but concrete measures can still be taken," he said, calling for a focus on vaccinations and a testing strategy, as well as a proactive investigation into the mask procurement scandal and a clear agenda for non-pandemic issues. .

The regional elections in the two states gave environmentalists and the traditionally left-leaning Greens new confidence for the national elections, when they are expected to run for chancellor for the first time.

The results also gave some encouragement to the Social Democrats, who are struggling against weak support at the federal level. National polls show that the CDU and CSU are still far ahead of the Greens and the Social Democrats despite falling support.

The Social Democrats' candidate for chancellor, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, said that the results showed that it was possible to form a government without the CDU. They enable the formation of tripartite coalitions of Greens, Social Democrats and Free Democrats in both countries, indicating the possibility of creating such alliances at the national level as well, although this has so far seemed difficult to achieve.

The party that did not do well in yesterday's elections is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). The party lost about a third of its support compared to its good results in 2016 with 9,7 percent of the vote in Baden-Württemberg and 8,3 percent in Rhineland-Palatinate.