BERLIN (AP) – Voters will go to the polls in the northern German state of Bremen on Sunday to decide whether the center-left Social Democrats should continue to rule a city they have ruled since World War II.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party came second behind its conservative rivals for the first time in 70 years in the last election, but retained power with the help of the Greens and Left party.
Although recent polls show greater support for the Social Democrats than for their opponents in the Christian Democratic Union, Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte’s two junior coalition partners have lost ground.
The Greens, in particular, have suffered setbacks over criticism of their energy policies at the national level, where they are in coalition with the Social Democrats and the libertarian Free Democrats.
Almost 500,000 voters aged 16 and over in Bremen and its North Sea enclave, Bremerhaven, are eligible to vote. Polls close at 18:00 (16:00 GMT; 12:00 EDT), after which initial projections based on exit polls and partial vote counts are released. A final count is not expected before Monday.
