国际英语新闻:CSU suffers great loss in Bavaria state election: initial forecast

MUNICH, Germany, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Christian Social Union (CSU), one of the three ruling parties in Germany, suffered great loss Sunday in the state election in Bavaria, according to the initial forecast by the public broadcasters ARD and ZDF.

Although the CSU won the election with a voting rate of 35.5 percent, it slumped by 12.2 percentage points from the last state election in 2013, while the environmentalist Green Party became the biggest winner by garnering 18.5 percent of votes.

The German Social Democratic Party (SPD), another party of Chancellor Angela Merkel's grand coalition government, has halved in comparison to the last state election, receiving only 10 percent of votes.

The anti-migration far-right Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) won 11 percent of votes, crossing the threshold and leaping into the state parliament.