MERKEL'S "GRAND COALITION" HUMILIATED IN HESSE REGIONAL ELECTION - CENTRIST VOTE COLLAPSES

The growing trend in politics is for the Centre to become the "Far Centre" as the Hard Right and Hard Left continue to rise. 

This is what we saw in the Brazilian election, and we see exactly the same thing in the Hesse State regional election in Germany, where the big centrist parties lost over 21 percentage points of the vote, while the Hard Right Alternative for Germany and the Hard Left Green Party gained 19 percentage points.

The latest results are as follows:

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) 27.9% (down from 38.3%)
Social Democratic Party (SPD) 19.9% (down from 30.7%)
Green Party 19.5% (up from 11.1%)
Alternative for Germany (AfD) 12% (up from 4.1%)
Free Democrats (FDP) 7.5% (up from 5%)
The Left 6.6% (up from 5.2%)

Hesse is a state in the centre of Germany with a population of a little over 6 million. Until today, the state's parliament was the final one without elected members from the AfD. Now the AfD is represented in all the German regional parliaments.

The SPD is now deeply divided between those who want to quit the Grand Coalition with the CDU in the Federal Parliament and those who want to stay. This result will probably strengthen the quitters, who argue that being the junior member in the coalition is destroying their support. 

The Greens are doing well in recent German elections because they are regarded as the acceptable "protest vote" by people deeply dissatisfied with the system but still afraid to vote for the AfD because of the media's distorted and biased coverage of the party.

At some point this Green protest vote is likely to hollow out, with part of it going to the AfD and part to the extremist "The Left" Party.

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