Polls in the northern state of Bremen are tight but suggest the SPD risks losing a stronghold it has ruled for more than 70 years in Bremen’s parliamentary election on Sunday.
Elections to the European Parliament on the same day could pile even more pressure on Merkel’s “grand coalition” as both the conservatives and SPD are likely to suffer heavy losses.
Kristina Vogt, who is leading Die Linke into her third election in Bremen told The Guardian: “My feeling is that the traditional party system as we know it is in the process of being dissolved.
“The big centrist parties are shrinking, and I don’t think they will return to their old strength.”
Bremen has the highest unemployment rates of any German state and some recent polls suggest there will be a coalition of SPD with the far-left Die Linke party and the Greens.
Such a move would be a first for a state in Germany’s old west, 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Many in the SPD party are fed up with serving as Merkel’s allies as they have done for 10 of the last 14 years.
The party reluctantly re-entered a Merkel-led coalition last year after slumping to its weakest level since 1933 in the 2017 federal election. It has since sunk even lower, polling at about 17 percent, more than 10 points behind the conservatives.
If the SPD loses Bremen to the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), pressure will mount on party leader Andrea Nahles to stand down or break with the federal coalition.
A new face for the CDU, IT businessman Carsten Meyer-Heder is one point ahead of experienced Bremen’s SPD mayor Carsten Sieling.
The party is due to review the coalition by the end of the year and there is pressure from members to break it and reinvigorate the party’s leftist policies as an oppositional force.
Such a move might force a snap federal election and could cause Merkel’s exit.