Punishment at the Polls – The CSU Election Debacle and the Conservatives - People and Politics, 03.10.2008

After holding an absolute majority in the Bavarian state parliament for almost 50 years, the Christian Social Union netted only 43 point 4 percent in Sunday’s elections. The CSU is the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. Now, 12 months before the next countrywide elections, Merkel will have to prepare for turbulence in her own party. On the eve of the Bavarian elections, other party leaders were already saying the conservatives had done too little for the middle-class. The resulting election loss means Merkel will go into the 2009 elections without the expected conservative incumbent's bonus.