BAVARIAN ELECTION
Squabbling parties bring Angela Merkel’s GroKo to verge of collapse
Merkel says she must do more to ensure there is trust
German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed on Monday to "win back trust" from voters after squabbling in her three-party coalition was blamed for severe election losses in the state of Bavaria. Looking back at a turbulent year since the 2017 general elections, when painful coalition talks were followed by harsh infighting on immigration, she conceded that "a lot of trust has been lost". Her lesson from Sunday’s polls, in which her governing partners suffered heavy losses, was that "I as the chancellor must do more to ensure that this trust is there". Her own Christian Democrats (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, "can be expected to act in a united way", she said, pointing to her deep rift with hardline interior minister Horst Seehofer of the CSU. The governing parties were shell-shocked after Sunday’s regional election, in which the CSU took a 10-point dive to 37%, losing its absolute majority in the state it has ruled since the 1960s. Merkel’s other national coalition partner...
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