国际英语新闻：Merkel's coalition loses control of Germany's most populous state

BERLIN, May 9 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party CDU and its alliance FDP on Sunday lost control of her country's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW).

NRW, with 13.5 million voters, held its legislative election on Sunday from 8:00 a.m. (0600 GMT) to 6:00 p.m. (1600 GMT), just after the parliament approved the Greek bailout plan on Friday.

Latest exit polls from local television ZDF showed the Christian Democrats (CDU) only got 34.3 percent of votes, 10 points lower than the election five years ago, while its alliance the Free Democrats (FDP) got 6.6 percent.

Their major rivals the Social Democrats (SPD) got 34.7 percent, the Greens 12.4 percent and the Left Party 5.7 percent, which means the current CDU-FDP local government failed in the election.

As the supporting rates of CDU an SPD are very close, the make- up of NRW's next government was still unclear. The biggest possibility are big coalition government formed by CDU and SPD, or SPD plus the Greens.

"The SPD is back!" the party's leader in NRW, Hannelore Kraft, told jubilant supporters after the first exit poll results, adding that she wanted to rule with the Greens.