Around 13.7 million voters are called to vote in today's local elections in the most populous state in Germany - North Rhine-Westphalia, DPA reported.
They will determine who will make decisions at the local and municipal level for the next five years. Polling stations open at 8 a.m. local time (9 a.m. Bulgarian time).
Chancellor Friedrich Merz promised to study the results of the vote very carefully and draw conclusions about what they will mean for regional and national politics.
Residents of the province will vote for a total of around 20,000 seats in local councils in 396 cities and municipalities, 31 districts and the parliament of the industrial Ruhr region. Mayors, district councillors, city councils, municipal councils and integration councils, regional councils and district councils in independent cities will be elected.
The local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia are the last major elections of the year in Germany. They are also seen as the first political test of public sentiment after the early federal elections in February.
Since 1999, the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has consistently won the most votes in local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia. It also won the previous local elections in 2020 - with 34.3%, followed by the center-left Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which came in second with 24.3% of the vote. The Greens achieved their best result - 20% - and won their first three mayoral posts in the province - in Aachen, Bonn and Wuppertal.
The far-right party "Alternative for Germany" (AfD) then received 5.1% support, the Free Democrats - 5.6%, and the "Left" party - 3.8%.
Election analysts expect a significantly stronger performance by the AfD this time.