By Oliver Towfigh Nia

BERLIN (AA) - German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) are leading the election in the southwestern state of Rhineland-Palatinate ahead of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), according to projections released Sunday by public broadcasters ARD and ZDF.

Based on the forecast, the CDU, headed by its top candidate Gordon Schnieder, has risen to 30.5% compared to 27.7% in the last election in 2021. The 50-year-old finance expert could now become the next state prime minister, after his party spent nearly 35 years in opposition in the home state of the late chancellor Helmut Kohl.

The SPD has plummeted to 26.5 to 27.0% (2021: 35.7%) – a historic low for the long-standing party in the state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate. The AfD has more than doubled its votes to 20.0% (2021:8.3/) – having its best-ever result in that state election.

The Greens are projected to receive 7.5 to 8.5% of the vote (2021:9.3%). The Free Voters achieved only 3.5 to 4.0% (2021:5.4%), while The Left, which has never been represented in the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament, gets 4.5% (2021:2.5%). Both parties are likely to have failed to clear the needed five-percent mark.

The Free Democratic Party (FDP) hovered around 2.0 to 2.1% and is well below the threshold and must leave the state parliament after 10 years.

Just under 3 million citizens were eligible to vote. According to projections, voter turnout was between 63.5 and 69.5% (2021: 64.3%).

For the past 10 years, a coalition of the SPD, the Greens, and the FDP had governed the state, which has a population of over four million people.

For months, the CDU had held a clear lead in the polls, but since the beginning of the year, the SPD had been catching up – though ultimately not enough. Now everything points to a grand coalition under Schnieder, as other alliances are either mathematically or – in the case of the AfD – politically out of the question.