A nationalist, anti-immigration party perform strongly in a German state election in the region where Chancellor Angela Merkel has her political base, overtaking her conservative party to take second place amid discontent with her migrant policies, projections indicated.
The three-year-old Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won about 21 percent of votes in the election for the state legislature in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, according to projections for ARD and ZDF television based on exit polls and partial counting. They put support for Merkel’s Christian Democrats at between 19 and 20 percent, which would be their worst result yet in the state.
AfD member Alexander Gauland, left, and Leif-Erik Holm, top candidate of the AfD, toast at the gathering of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) party in Schwerin, Germany, September 4, 2016. (AP/Michael Sohn)
The center-left Social Democrats, who lead the outgoing state government, were expected to be the strongest party with about 30 percent support.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, an economically weak region in Germany’s northeastern corner, is home to 1.6 million of the country’s 80 million people and is a relative political lightweight. It is, however, the state where Merkel has her parliamentary constituency, and Sunday’s vote was the first of five regional votes before a national election a bit more than a year away.
National AfD leader Frauke Petry celebrated “a blow to Angela Merkel.” Local AfD Leif-Erik Holm told supporters: “Perhaps this is the beginning of the end of Angela Merkel’s chancellorship today.”
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