Merkel wins election; far-right party earns seats in parliament
BERLIN — Angela Merkel won a fourth term as chancellor in elections on Sunday, placing her in the front ranks of Germany’s postwar leaders, even as her victory was dimmed by the entry of a far-right party into parliament for the first time in more than 60 years, according to preliminary results.
The far-right party, Alternative for Germany, or AfD, got some 13 percent of the vote — nearly three times the 4.7 percent it received in 2013 — a significant showing of voter anger over immigration and inequality as support for the two main parties sagged from four years ago.
As Merkel and her centerright Christian Democrats won, the center held, but it was weakened. The results made clear that far-right populism — along with anxieties over security and national identity — was far from dead in Europe.
They also showed that Germany’s mainstream parties were not immune to the same troubles that have afflicted mainstream parties across the Continent, from Italy to France to Britain.
“We expected a better result, that is clear,” Merkel said Sunday night. “The good thing is that we will definitely lead the next government.”
Despite her victory, Merkel and her conservatives cannot rule alone, making it probable that the chancellor’s political life in her fourth term will be substantially more complicated.
The shape and policies of a new governing coalition will involve weeks of painstaking negotiations. Smiling, Merkel said Sunday night that she hoped to have a new government “by Christmas.”
The center-left Social Democrats, Merkel’s partners for the last four years, ran a poor second to her center-right grouping.
While both Merkel and the Social Democrats lost significant voter support from 2013, her victory vaults her into the ranks of Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl, the only postwar chancellors to win four national elections.