Germany

Chancellor Merkel’s party suffers losses in her own home state Merkel's support slid, her pro-business allies suffered a "debacle," but the left, far left, and Greens all made gains.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party suffered an electoral setback in her home state Sunday, two years before a national vote and amid mounting criticism over her handling of the eurozone crisis.

Key opposition parties took votes from her conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) in the poll, the latest in a string of poor election results in 2011, dubbed a "super election year."

According to exit polls released by TV channel ARD, the CDU won 23.3 percent in elections in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, an embarrassing decline on the 28.8 percent they won in 2006.

As expected, the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) was the strongest party, with 36.6 percent of the vote, a significant gain on their 2006 performance of 30.2 percent.

The third-strongest party was the far-left Linke, with 18.0 percent.

The resurgent Greens scored 8.0 percent, according to the exit poll, ensuring their representation in the regional parliament for the first time. They had previously failed to clear the five-percent hurdle required to enter the parliament.

The far-right NPD, which has historically done well in the state that has an unemployment rate nearly twice as high as the national average, also lost support but looked likely to scrape back into parliament with 5.9 percent.

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Final results in the state will not be available for another two weeks, following the death of the CDU candidate in one electoral district, forcing the postponement of the ballot.