{UAH} Anti-Immigrant AfD Trounces Merkel’s Christian Democrats in Her Home State
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Anti-Immigrant AfD Trounces Merkel's Christian Democrats in Her Home State
Germany's Christian Democrats are expected to get 19% of the vote—the party's worst-ever result in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania
ENLARGE Leif-Erik Holm, Alexander Gauland and Beatrix von Storch of the Alternative for Germany party celebrate after elections results gave the AfD 21.5 % of the vote in state elections in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Photo: Getty Images/Carsten Koall BERLIN—Germany's upstart anti-immigrant party beat Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats on Sunday for the first time in a state election, while the center-left Social Democrats held on to win the vote in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, exit polling and initial results showed.
The three-year-old Alternative for Germany, or AfD, was set to receive 21.4% of the vote, projections from pollster Infratest Dimap said after the polls closed in the northeastern German state. The Christian Democrats, by contrast, were to receive 19%—the party's worst-ever result in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, a sparsely populated, economically challenged state in the former East that also happens to be home to Ms. Merkel.
Sunday's election was for the legislature in a single state with a population of about 1.6 million. And overall, the center-left Social Democrats won the vote, with 30.3%, according to projections—setting the stage for that party's leader in the state, Erwin Sellering, to be able to continue his tenure as the state's premier.
But the results—in particular the AfD's performance—reflected a wave of public discontent with Ms. Merkel's refugee policy, which dominated the regional campaign. The AfD has now won seats in nine of Germany's 16 powerful state parliaments and is building momentum ahead of next year's national elections that could spell trouble for the chancellor.
ENLARGE "This is a proud result that we couldn't have dreamed of some time ago," Leif-Erik Holm, the AfD's top candidate in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, said after the first results came in. "Hopefully this is today, finally, the beginning of the end of the chancellorship of Angela Merkel."
In a sign of how much the AfD's rise has shaken up German politics, the party drew voters from all political camps as well as many supporters who didn't vote in the previous election, exit polling showed.
Among the casualties: the ultranationalist National Democratic Party, which appeared set to come in below the 5% threshold for seats in parliament and thus lose its last presence in a state legislature.
Under pressure from the AfD, Ms. Merkel has unveiled a range of new initiatives to stop the flow of migrants and to convince Germans she is keeping them safe. While the influx of people seeking asylum has dropped markedly from last year, two Islamist terror attacks by asylum seekers in July further unsettled the public about the security implications of the migrant tide. Ms. Merkel's approval rating has sunk to 45%, the lowest level in five years.
Sunday's results "are bitter for everyone in our party," said the Christian Democrats' Secretary General, Peter Tauber. "Among a recognizable portion (of the voters,) there was an explicit desire to register discontent and protest, and one could notice this especially in the discussion about refugees."
Two-thirds of AfD voters cast their ballot for the upstart party because they were disappointed by the other parties, the Infratest Dimap exit poll found. About half of AfD voters said that the refugee issue was decisive in their voting choice. Nearly all of them said they feared that the influence of Islam was becoming too strong and that crime would rise.
Ms. Merkel was in China Sunday for the Group of 20 meeting of economic powers and wasn't expected to comment on the vote results. She has yet to announce whether or not she will run for a fourth term in next September's national election.
Write to Anton Troianovski at anton.troianovski@wsj.com
ENLARGE BERLIN—Germany's upstart anti-immigrant party beat Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats on Sunday for the first time in a state election, while the center-left Social Democrats held on to win the vote in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, exit polling and initial results showed.
The three-year-old Alternative for Germany, or AfD, was set to receive 21.4% of the vote, projections from pollster Infratest Dimap said after the polls closed in the northeastern German state. The Christian Democrats, by contrast, were to receive 19%—the party's worst-ever result in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, a sparsely populated, economically challenged state in the former East that also happens to be home to Ms. Merkel.
Sunday's election was for the legislature in a single state with a population of about 1.6 million. And overall, the center-left Social Democrats won the vote, with 30.3%, according to projections—setting the stage for that party's leader in the state, Erwin Sellering, to be able to continue his tenure as the state's premier.
But the results—in particular the AfD's performance—reflected a wave of public discontent with Ms. Merkel's refugee policy, which dominated the regional campaign. The AfD has now won seats in nine of Germany's 16 powerful state parliaments and is building momentum ahead of next year's national elections that could spell trouble for the chancellor.
ENLARGE "This is a proud result that we couldn't have dreamed of some time ago," Leif-Erik Holm, the AfD's top candidate in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, said after the first results came in. "Hopefully this is today, finally, the beginning of the end of the chancellorship of Angela Merkel."
In a sign of how much the AfD's rise has shaken up German politics, the party drew voters from all political camps as well as many supporters who didn't vote in the previous election, exit polling showed.
Among the casualties: the ultranationalist National Democratic Party, which appeared set to come in below the 5% threshold for seats in parliament and thus lose its last presence in a state legislature.
Under pressure from the AfD, Ms. Merkel has unveiled a range of new initiatives to stop the flow of migrants and to convince Germans she is keeping them safe. While the influx of people seeking asylum has dropped markedly from last year, two Islamist terror attacks by asylum seekers in July further unsettled the public about the security implications of the migrant tide. Ms. Merkel's approval rating has sunk to 45%, the lowest level in five years.
Sunday's results "are bitter for everyone in our party," said the Christian Democrats' Secretary General, Peter Tauber. "Among a recognizable portion (of the voters,) there was an explicit desire to register discontent and protest, and one could notice this especially in the discussion about refugees."
Two-thirds of AfD voters cast their ballot for the upstart party because they were disappointed by the other parties, the Infratest Dimap exit poll found. About half of AfD voters said that the refugee issue was decisive in their voting choice. Nearly all of them said they feared that the influence of Islam was becoming too strong and that crime would rise.
Ms. Merkel was in China Sunday for the Group of 20 meeting of economic powers and wasn't expected to comment on the vote results. She has yet to announce whether or not she will run for a fourth term in next September's national election.
Write to Anton Troianovski at anton.troianovski@wsj.com
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