After a poor showing in regional elections this weekend, Angela Merkel says she plans to step down as chancellor of Germany in 2021. She's giving three years notice.
She also said she would not seek re-election as leader of the centre-right CDU party in December. She has held the post since 2000. The CDU was severely weakened in Sunday's poll in the state of Hesse, the latest in a series of setbacks. Both the CDU and its coalition partners, the Social Democrats, were 10 percentage points down on the previous poll there – even though they remain in power in Hesse.
Merkel's conservatives still won, but no longer dominates, while the center-left Social Democrats appear to have been severely punished for joining her government. Voters peeled off to the left and right: greens and fascists shared the votes her centrist coalition lost.
On the left, the Greens' share of the vote rose to around 20 percent, from 8 percent previously. The right-wing Alternative for Germany, or AfD, had a 12 percent share, a little below the 15 percent it has nationally.
With Sunday's results, the anti-immigrant AfD easily passed the threshold for entering the regional legislature for the first time, giving it representation now in all 16 of Germany's state parliaments.
