Far right-wing party makes gains in German elections

BERLIN — A far right-wing party in Germany won enough votes Sunday to gain seats in three regional elections, a result seen as a major rebuke to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open immigration policy.

The 3-year-old Alternative for Deutschland party, or AfD, won representation in the states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate in prosperous southwestern Germany and in Saxony-Anhalt, an economically disadvantaged area in the eastern part of the country, according to results and exit polls broadcast on German state TV.

The AfD won 15% of the vote in Baden-Wuerttemberg and 12.6% in Rhineland-Palatinate, according to official results. The party finished second in Saxony-Anhalt with 24%, according to projections by ARD and ZDF television with most districts counted.

Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union party suffered vote-share losses in all three states but remained the largest party in Saxony-Anhalt.

"Voters are turning away in large numbers from the big established parties and voting for our party," AfD leader Frauke Petry said at an election rally. She added that voters "expect us to be the opposition that there hasn’t been in the German parliament and some state parliaments.”

The AfD is now represented in eight of Germany's 16 state parliaments.

The nationalist party is highly critical of Merkel's approach to Europe's migration crisis. Merkel's open-door policy allowed more than 1 million asylum seekers to be registered in Germany last year, and she has refused to put a formal cap on new arrivals, a position that has split public opinion.

Sunday's vote is important because it may indicate how Merkel will do in a national election to be held in 2017.

A top official with Merkel’s party, Peter Tauber, noted recent polls indicate that Merkel's popularity is rebounding. “This shows that it is good if (Merkel's party) sticks to this course, saying that we need time to master this big challenge,” he said

Sunday's results could also be a distraction for Merkel as she tries to build support for a deal with Turkey to stem the flow of migrants trying to reach northern Europe by crossing waters that connect Turkey with Greece.

"German voters punished (Merkel) and her party for her (migrant) policy in a clear and unambiguous way," said Jens Walther, a politics professor at the University of Dusseldorf. "The elections in all three states have yielded only one clear winner: the AfD."

The AfD's strong performance will aggravate tensions between political parties in Germany and make the formation of coalitions more difficult, Walther said.

It will also boost the AfD's chances of entering the Bundestag, Germany's national parliament, for the first time next year.

The current German government is ruled by a coalition between Merkel's party, the Christian Social Union and the center-left Social Democratic Party.

In Baden-Wuerttemberg, the Green Party was projected for the first time to secure enough votes to be the biggest party in a state parliament with 32.5% of the vote, according to the exit polls.