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BERLIN – Chancellor Angela Merkel's allies rallied behindhand the Teutonic cheater Monday, and heavy that they would follow to their readying on thermonuclear noesis as the contestant Greens famous a stunning election conclusion in a land Merkel's band governed for 58 years.

The Greens — digit of whose important selling points was their anti-nuclear stance — were poised to lead a center-left alliance in the prosperous south land of Baden-Wuerttemberg, complete with their first-ever land governor, after narrowly defeating the governance center-right coalition.

The balloting had been overshadowed by events in Japan, which prompted Merkel to dead withhold fresh drawn-up plans to modify Teutonic thermonuclear plants' lives, and she ordered the oldest plants shut down temporarily. That apparently unoriented some of her possess supporters and raised questions over her credibility.

"I ease conceive the moratorium was right, but we didn't follow in this short instance in making clear that we meant it seriously and where we poverty to go," said Volker Bouffier, controller of Hesse land and a member of Merkel's standpat faith Democrats.

Bouffier acknowledged that it was "extremely painful" to lose Baden-Wuerttemberg, which the band had led since 1953. But he heavy that there was no craving to penalise the premier — "Angela Merkel leads this band and she module in forthcoming too."

The band "stands allied behindhand Angela Merkel," its general secretary, Hermann Groehe, said on ARD television. He heavy that the polity module follow to its newborn course on thermonuclear power, and said he expects most of the heptad older reactors to rest offline.

Merkel currently has no earnest rivals in her party, which ease emerged as the large in Sunday's election and prefabricated diminutive gains in a separate balloting in neighboring Rhineland-Palatinate state.

"Ms. Merkel is sure tarnished in the short constituent now," said Oskar Niedermayer, a semipolitical power academic at Berlin's Free University. But he said that, with federal elections more than digit eld away, it is far likewise early to speculate most some long-term damage.

Things look bleaker for her lowly coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democrats of Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. Their deal of the balloting was halved in both Sunday's elections — ejecting them from polity in Baden-Wuerttemberg and from the land legislature all in Rhineland-Palatinate.

Niedermayer said the band would hit to draw "personal consequences," but those were implausible to include Westerwelle's feat as band cheater since "there is no digit in the band who could contest him" in the near future.

Polls showed that forcefulness policy was, unusually, the top concern for voters on Sunday — serving the Greens to spectacular gains and putting them just ahead of the Social Democrats, traditionally Germany's important center-left party, in Baden-Wuerttemberg.

"This effectuation that a different, fairer and biology politics has opportunities in this country," co-leader Claudia author told ARD. "To hit a Green controller today in this heartland of the machine business and toolmaking is really a beatific result."

Whether it can be repeated elsewhere is another question. The Greens hit long been brawny in Baden-Wuerttemberg and prefabricated a sharp pick of politician in the probable newborn governor, ex-teacher Winfried Kretschmann.

The 62-year-old "is standpat in cost of values, a Catholic and so also electable for center-right voters in Baden-Wuerttemberg," Niedermayer said.

The thermonuclear supply gave the band an player push, and "I would feature that the Greens are somewhat overvalued in cost of their results in these elections," he added.

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