Nearly 14 million voters in western German state head to local polls

Some 13.7 million eligible voters in western Germany are called to the polls on Sunday for local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany's most populous state.

They will determine who will be making decisions at the local and municipal level over the next five years. Polling stations open at 8:00 am (0600 GMT).

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has vowed to examine the results of Sunday's vote very carefully and draw conclusions for what they will mean for regional and national politics.

About 20,000 seats are up for election across local councils in 396 towns and municipalities, 31 districts, and the Ruhr Regional Parliament, which represents Germany's industrial Ruhr area.

Mayors, Lord Mayors, district councillors, city, municipal and integration councils, district councils and district councils in independent cities will be elected.

The local elections in Germany's most populous federal state are the last major election of this year in Germany and are regarded as the first political test of public opinion following the early federal elections last February.

Since 1999, the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has regularly won the most votes statewide in the NRW local elections.

It also won the previous local elections in 2020 with 34.3%, followed by the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) with 24.3%. The Greens achieved their best result with 20% and won their first three mayor posts in NRW - in Aachen, Bonn and Wuppertal.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) achieved 5.1% and the Free Democrats (FDP) 5.6%. The Left Party got 3.8% per cent. Election researchers expect significantly higher results for the AfD this time around.