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Anti-Immigrant Party Makes Gains in German Elections, Exit Polls Suggest | |
(about 9 hours later) | |
BERLIN — An upstart far-right party campaigning on an anti-immigrant platform made strong gains in regional balloting across Germany on Sunday, while Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives suffered losses in two western states, initial projections showed. | |
The vote was widely viewed as a test of Ms. Merkel’s welcoming policy toward refugees. If the chancellor’s center-right party fails to oust sitting governors in the western states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate that could weaken her days before she heads to Brussels to complete a deal with Turkey to stop the flow of migrants into Europe. | |
Final results were not expected until early Monday, but initial projections based on exit polls by the polling group Infratest dimap for the public broadcaster ARD indicated that the chancellor’s Christian Democrats would not garner enough votes to take control of either of the western states. | |
Although Ms. Merkel’s party appeared poised to emerge as the strongest force in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, it may prove difficult for the party to form a government there, given the strong showing of the far-right party Alternative for Germany. That party appeared likely to emerge as the second-place party, capturing more than 20 percent of the vote after galvanizing voters through its campaign to protect German’s national identity as the number of migrants increases. | |
The chancellor has maintained her calm and continued to insist that history will bear out the wisdom of her decision to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees at a time when Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is struggling to find enough skilled workers to fill jobs. Asked at a campaign rally on Saturday how she was preparing for Sunday’s results, the chancellor said she was “crossing her fingers.” | The chancellor has maintained her calm and continued to insist that history will bear out the wisdom of her decision to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees at a time when Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is struggling to find enough skilled workers to fill jobs. Asked at a campaign rally on Saturday how she was preparing for Sunday’s results, the chancellor said she was “crossing her fingers.” |
Voter turnout was high among the 12.7 million Germans eligible to vote on Sunday. They account for only about a fifth of the country’s overall electorate, but the balloting was the largest to take place before the next general election, in 2017. Heading into the vote, experts predicted that the outcome would indicate the direction the country was going and serve as an evaluation of the chancellor’s policies. | |
About 63 percent of eligible voters turned out in Saxony-Anhalt, many of them motivated by the Alternative for Germany, a protest party founded in 2013 in response to disillusionment with traditional parties’ handling of the sovereign debt crisis. The Alternative for Germany has since transformed into an anti-immigrant party, whose leader has said border guards might turn guns on anyone entering the country illegally. | |
If they do secure second place in the state Legislature, it will make forming a coalition a challenge for the Christian Democrats, given expected losses by their current partners, the Social Democrats. | |
The projections also showed the Alternative for Germany winning enough support to enter into the legislatures of both of the western states, a development that raises its presence at the regional level to representation in half of the country’s 16 states. | |
In Baden-Württemberg, controlled for decades by Ms. Merkel’s center-right party, the left-leaning Greens, whose incumbent governor, Winfried Kretschmann, was swept into power five years ago over worries about nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, helped his party to emerge as the strongest force in the state. Mr. Kretschman had supported the chancellor’s refugee policies. | |
In Rhineland-Palatinate, the projections showed the chancellor’s party losing to its partners in the national government, the center-left Social Democrats, despite fielding a close ally of the chancellor, Julia Klöckner, as their leading candidate. | |
Yet even the incumbent Social Democratic governor, Malu Dreyer, may have a difficult time forming a coalition given the strong showing of the Alternative for Germany, which projections showed taking support from both of the leading parties. | |
Such splintering of loyalties in a political system steeped in longstanding party alliances reflects the level of uncertainty many Germans feel as their country adjusts to accommodating and integrating several hundred thousand of the more than one million migrants who arrived last year seeking refuge from wars, or simply a better life. | Such splintering of loyalties in a political system steeped in longstanding party alliances reflects the level of uncertainty many Germans feel as their country adjusts to accommodating and integrating several hundred thousand of the more than one million migrants who arrived last year seeking refuge from wars, or simply a better life. |
Ms. Merkel’s open-door statements have also created rifts within Europe, where many traditional allies felt overrun by what they viewed as a one-sided decision. She struggled at a summit meeting in Brussels last week to galvanize support for a deal with Turkey aimed at preventing migrants from reaching the European Union’s outer borders. | Ms. Merkel’s open-door statements have also created rifts within Europe, where many traditional allies felt overrun by what they viewed as a one-sided decision. She struggled at a summit meeting in Brussels last week to galvanize support for a deal with Turkey aimed at preventing migrants from reaching the European Union’s outer borders. |
That deal is to be sealed at an upcoming meeting on Thursday and Friday, and a poor showing in the elections at home risks leaving Ms. Merkel weakened heading into those negotiations. | That deal is to be sealed at an upcoming meeting on Thursday and Friday, and a poor showing in the elections at home risks leaving Ms. Merkel weakened heading into those negotiations. |