Germany's FDP faces exile after 65 years The pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), the junior coalition partner party to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, face ejection from the legislature after suffering a 10 percentage point loss in general elections. "That is the worst result we have had ever," said Rainer Bruederle, the party's prime candidate. It's not the end of the party. It will be harder, but the work will go on. Philipp Roesler, party leader and federal economics minister, also took personal responsibility for the defeat. Both Roesler and Bruederle indicated that they planned to stand down. The FDP, which was formed out of a group of small liberal parties, has been represented in the federal parliament, the Bundestag, for 65 years, ever since its formation in the wake of World War II. The party differentiated itself from the major parties with a pro-business message and a focus on privacy and individual freedoms. The party's demise began after it failed to deliver on a campaign pledge for big tax cuts after it joined the Merkel-led government in 2009. This was followed by a series of scandals and leadership changes during the early years of its membership in Merkel's centre-right coalition. In 2009, the party won 14.6 per cent of the vote. But, on Sunday, its vote had slumped to 4.6 per cent, below the 5-per-cent share of the vote it needs to remain in parliament, according to vote count projection by public television ARD. With opinion polls in the run-up to Sunday's election showing the party struggling to remain in parliament, the FDP launched a campaign calling on CDU voters to lend them support in the election. This sparked a round of tensions with the CDU, with Merkel insisting that her party did not have any votes to give away. Her comments were focused on state elections in Lower Saxony last January, when CDU voters also lent their votes to the FDP, resulting in a shift of votes away from the CDU and Merkel's party losing control of the state. The FDP's steady fall from favour with voters has led to it crashing out of eight state parliaments since 2009. The last came on Sunday, when the FDP was turfed out of the state assembly in Hesse, which also held elections on Sunday. Once considered the kingmakers of German politics, the FDP has forged coalitions with both the Christian Democrats-led bloc and the Social Democrats (SDP). But in 1982, the FDP abandoned the SPD to side with then CDU leader Helmut Kohl, paving the way for his term as Germany's longest-serving chancellor. The FDP has remained loyal to the CDU, despite various attempts to coax the FDP into forming a three-party coalition with the SPD and the Greens.