Berlin, May 17 (IANS): Germany's Green Party nearly tripled its last result in the state election in the country's most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia, recording the biggest gain of any party and achieving a record result of 18.2 per cent.

In the election often referred to as the "small Bundestag election" because of its signaling power for the next federal election, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) remained the strongest party with 35.7 per cent of votes ahead of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Chancellor Olaf Scholz with 26.7 per cent, Xinhua news agency reported.

The current government of CDU and the liberal party FDP, however, failed to reach the majority to continue its work after the FDP suffered heavy losses and saw votes more than halve to 5.9 per cent, according to the preliminary official results released on Monday.

As was the case on the federal level, the Green party is now expected to tip the scales in the upcoming coalition negotiations as the third-strongest political force. With the exception of the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland, the party is generally open to negotiations with all established parties.

Former SPD voters contributed to the good results of the Greens, as 260,000 voters switched camps between the two parties, according to a study published by Infratest dimap on Monday. The Greens also received particularly strong support from the younger age groups up to 34 years.