Germany's opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) paid the price last night for three months of revelations about illegal donations and dubious financial practices when voters in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein deserted the party in their thousands.
Results showed that the governing coalition of Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens would retain an overall majority in the state parliament - a result that reverses a trend of electoral disasters suffered by Germany's governing parties during the past year.
The SPD won 43.1 per cent of the vote, over 2 per cent more than at the last state election four years ago. The CDU lost 2 per cent, leaving them with 35.2 per cent, while the Greens won 6.2 per cent of the vote, slightly less than last time.
The biggest winners were the Liberal Free Democrats (FDP) who saw their vote leap by 2.3 per cent to 7.6 per cent and the South Schleswig Voters' Association, a party representing the state's small Danish minority, which almost doubled its vote to 4.1 per cent.
The CDU candidate, Mr Volker Ruhe, attempted to put a brave face on his party's poor performance, pointing out that opinion polls had predicted that the CDU would fare even worse. "I succeeded in avoiding a catastrophe. The CDU would have won had it not been for the funding scandal," he said.
During the final days of the campaign, Mr Ruhe attempted to turn the election into a referendum on his ambition to become leader of the CDU following the resignation of the scandal-tainted Dr Wolfgang Schauble.
But the SPD's general secretary, Mr Franz Muntefering, last night described the SchleswigHolstein result as "two black eyes - one for the CDU and one for Ruhe".
Conservatives within the CDU are backing Mr Ruhe for the leadership against the party's general secretary, Dr Angela Merkel, whom they regard as too liberal on social issues.
Although Mr Ruhe is likely to remain in the race, last night's result can only strengthen Dr Merkel's position - not least because it confirmed the popularity of Germany's only female prime minister, Schlesvig-Holstein's Ms Heide Simonis.
Social Democrats were interpreting last night's result as a welcome omen in advance of May's election in Germany's most populous state, North-Rhine Westphalia, where the party has been battered by allegations of corruption.
Mr Muntefering claimed that much of the credit for yesterday's victory belonged to Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, whose centre-left government is more popular than at any time since it came to power in 1998.
"We have shown that we have gained new confidence among the people with our programme for the future and our solid budgetary policy," he said.
The CDU will meet tomorrow in Berlin to choose a new front bench under Mr Friedrich Merz, who was chosen as parliamentary leader following Dr Schauble's resignation.
Mr Ruhe made it clear last night that he is hoping for a prominent position in the new line-up.
The CDU, facing a massive fine for violating campaign finance laws, said the party was receiving "solidarity contributions" after it posted an appeal on the Internet. The CDU's official website (www.cdu.de) showed yesterday that the solidarity fund stood at more than DM90,000 marks (£30,000). The party was fined DM41 million marks by parliament on February 15th for violating funding rules.