Bavaria’s election was a disaster for Angela Merkel’s allies

If politics were a science, the Bavarian-based Christian Social Union would be the automatic and overwhelming victor in every regional election. Bavaria is doing quite well: it’s the richest region of the richest country in Europe with the lowest unemployment (2.8 per cent) and crime rates. Bavaria, in fact, is so wealthy that it serves as the prime donor to Germany’s poorer states. Last year, Bavaria coughed up €5.89 billion to the cash-strapped regions of the former East Germany.

Unfortunately for the CSU, politics is more art than science. You can brag about being the elected administrators of the wealthiest and most physically beautiful part of Germany but still get massacred at the polls. And so it was for the sister party of Angela Merkel’s CDU. As of posting, the CSU took just over 37 per cent of the vote in Bavaria’s regional election. The Greens nearly doubled their vote share from 2013 to 17.5