An upset in North Rhine-Westphalia unsettles Germany’s ruling coalition

party on May 15th in a tent in the garden of the headquarters of the Christian Democratic Party () in Düsseldorf, the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia (), got so noisy that the office of public order had to intervene after locals complained. members celebrated their unexpectedly strong showing at the state’s election with 500 litres of beer and very loud chanting. Hendrik Wüst, the usually stiff Westphalian who is the incumbent state premier, was dancing and chanting along.Mr Wüst’s landslide surprised everyone. In the last polls before the vote the and the Social Democratic Party () were neck-and-neck. Yet the ended up fully nine percentage points ahead, with 35.7% compared with 26.7% for the . The other big winners were the Greens, who tripled their share of the vote to 18.2%; the other big loser was the free-market Free Democratic Party (), which saw its share halve, to just under 6%, compared with the election in 2017.