Merkel's coalition digests painful election defeat

BERLIN - Chancellor Angela Merkel's allies rallied behind the German leader on Monday and stressed that they would stick to their turnaround on nuclear power as the opposition Greens celebrated a stunning election victory in a state Merkel's party governed for 58 years.

The Greens - one of whose main selling points was their anti-nuclear stance - were poised to lead a center-left alliance in the prosperous southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, complete with their first-ever state governor, after narrowly defeating the governing center-right coalition.

The vote had been overshadowed by events in Japan, which prompted Merkel to abruptly freeze recently drawn-up plans to extend German nuclear plants' lives, and she ordered the oldest plants shut down temporarily. That apparently disoriented some of her own supporters and raised questions over her credibility.