Hamburg, Rabi'II 26, 1436, February 15, 2015, SPA -- Voters went to the polls on Sunday in a legislative election in the German state of Hamburg, where the Social Democratic Party (SPD) is hoping to retain its absolute majority, dpa reported. Polls suggest that Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) will come a distant second in the port city, which has some 1.3 million registered voters. The centre-left SPD - her coalition partner in the federal government - are forecast to garner up to 47 per cent of votes, enough for the city's popular mayor, Olaf Scholz, to be reappointed by the state assembly for five more years. Should he fall short of an absolute majority, Scholz has said he will invite the environmentalist Green Party to form a coalition. The Greens are likely to command 12 per cent of votes. Television channels are scheduled to report exit polls when voting ends at 6 pm (1700 GMT), and are expected to provide reliable vote-count projections within the hour. --SPA A loss by Merkel's CDU, forecast to take only 17 per cent of the vote, would have few ramifications for the chancellor, since Hamburg's voters are traditionally more leftist than the national average. Germany's burgeoning right-wing conservative Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, founded only two years ago, is hoping the election will yield its first seats in a western state assembly. Polls suggest the AfD will take 5 per cent of vote, the exact threshold to win representation under German electoral law, making the outcome uncertain. So far the AfD has only won seats in the European Parliament and three state assemblies in eastern states. Germany has scheduled only two legislative polls this year. The other takes place on May 10 in Bremen, another SPD-held city-state. # Notebook ## Internet links - [Hamburg state electoral commission](http://dpaq.de/ZDOOO) * * * * The following information is not intended for publication ## Editorial contacts - Reporting by: Jean-Baptiste Piggin - Editing by: Friederike Heine, +49 30 285231472, dpa jbp hef 150808 GMT Feb 15 13:15 LOCAL TIME 10:15 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w