German state vote offers last test before national election

A state vote on Sunday is German politicians’ last major test at the ballot box before a September election that will determine who succeeds Chancellor Angela Merkel

BERLIN -- A state vote on Sunday is German politicians' last major test at the ballot box before a September election that will determine who succeeds Chancellor Angela Merkel. After a bumpy start to the year, the longtime leader's bloc is hoping for a good showing in an eastern region where a far-right party is a strong challenger. The vote for a new legislature in Saxony-Anhalt, a state of 2.2 million people that is one of Germany's less prosperous, puts a sharp focus on one problem Merkel's Christian Democratic Union faces in the east: reining in the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD. Its bigger challenge nationally is on its other flank: keeping at bay the environmentalist Greens, who are strongest in western Germany and in big cities. And Armin Laschet, the centrist CDU leader who is running to succeed Merkel as chancellor in the Sept. 26 national election, needs to rally conservatives behind him after he emerged as the party's candidate from a bruising duel in April. The election year started badly for the CDU when it lost two state votes in March to popular incumbent governors from more liberal parties. In Saxony-Anhalt, it has a popular incumbent of its own in Reiner Haseloff, 67, who has governed for the past decade.