2026-09-21
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This is the World in Brief from The Economist.
Exit polls in Germany's regional election suggest the ruling Christian
Democratic Union won just 5% of the vote in the northeast state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
Friedrich Merz, the chancellor, called the result a disaster.
The populist-right alternative for Germany would probably narrowly beat the center-left Social Democrats for first.
In Berlin, meanwhile, the CDC looks set to drop to second behind the populist-left Die Linke.