Anti-Euro Party Wins More Seats in Germany’s State Legislatures

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/world/europe/anti-euro-party-alternative-for-germany-wins-more-seats-in-state-legislatures.html

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BERLIN — An upstart party that is skeptical of the common European currency, and often strikes a radical tone, won seats in two more state legislatures in eastern Germany on Sunday, gathering momentum it hopes to use to further its platform.

The party, Alternative for Germany, won 10 percent of the vote in Thuringia State and 12 percent in Brandenburg, according to exit polls. The party missed the 5 percent threshold needed to enter the German Parliament last year, but it has since won seats in the European Parliament. Two weeks ago the party gained its first seats in the state Parliament in Saxony, also in the east.

In Thuringia, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union emerged as the strongest party, but it fell short of a clear majority and will have to find a partner to build a coalition government in the state. The party’s governor, Christine Lieberknecht, has expressed hope that she could continue to govern with the Social Democrats, who govern with the chancellor at the national level.

The Social Democrats emerged as the strongest party in Brandenburg, the state surrounding Berlin, which the center-left party has long dominated. They, too, will have to form a new government, either with the chancellor’s conservatives, or continue with their current partners, the Left Party.