BERLIN—Chancellor Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partners gave her conservatives until next year to deliver more policy results, threatening to end their alliance if there is no improvement after both parties suffered in a regional election on Oct. 28.
Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) came home first in the election in the western state of Hesse but polled just 27.2 percent of the vote, projections for broadcaster ZDF based on preliminary results showed.
