Angela Merkel’s party suffers loss in Berlin election, Berlin state elections Result candidates votes 2016, Christian Democrats (CDU) party, Alternative for Germany (AfD) , German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Europe September 19, 2016,Angela Merkel’s party suffers loss in Berlin election, Berlin state elections Result candidates votes 2016, Christian Democrats (CDU) party, Alternative for Germany (AfD) , German Chancellor Angela Merkel
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party has suffered an electoral blow in Berlin state elections, two weeks after her Christian Democrats (CDU) party came third in an eastern state amid a growing backlash against her immigration policy.
The anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany (AfD) gained support, capitalising on anger over Merkel’s open-door refugee policy that has allowed one million asylum seekers into Germany, with 70,000 of them coming to Berlin.
AfD, which has campaigned heavily on the refugee issue, managed to garner 12.2 percent of the vote and will enter its tenth regional assembly of the country's 16 states.
CDU's coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD), also lost support, falling to 23.1 percent from 28.3 percent but remained the biggest party and is likely to ditch Merkel's party from their current coalition.
The Social Democrats, Merkel's junior coalition partner at the federal level, may strike deals with Greens and the Left party, each of them getting 16.5 percent of the vote.
A backlash against the chancellor's immigrant policy has raised questions about whether Merkel, Europe's most powerful leader, will stand for a fourth term next year.
"There is no question, we didn't get a good result in Berlin today," said Michael Grosse-Broemer, a senior CDU politician. However, he blamed his party's historic losses in Berlin primarily on local issues.
"I think it is dangerous to transfer the Berlin result to the federal level," he told.
Sigmar Gabriel, the national head of the Social Democrats, which govern in a coalition with Merkel's Christian Democrats, said "we don't find it good" that the AfD will now be represented in the city-state of Berlin's parliament.
"But almost 90 per cent of voters did not vote for them, and that's also important," he said.
Without enough support for the governing SPD-CDU "grand coalition" to continue, the most likely new governing alliance appeared to be a combination of the SPD, Greens, which won 16.4 per cent, and Left party.
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