Germany’s far-right AfD gains seats

In a seismic culturBERLIN al shift, German voters on Sunday elected members of a far-right, nationalist party into parliament for the first time in a half-century.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD), In its first federal election, was headed toward winning about 88 seats in the current 630member Bundestag and making it the third-largest political force in parliament.

“We’re going chase down Frau Merkel (Chancellor Angela Merkel) and whoever else gets in our way until we get back our country,” AfD co-founder and co-chairman Alexander Gauland said.

The victory by Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union party was no surprise Sunday. But her open-door policy that allowed refugees into the country since 2015 spiked support for the AfD.

The AfD is the first farright party in parliament since the German Right Party won seats in 1949.

The party’s staunch antiIslamic rhetoric appealed to pockets of voters who feared that an influx of Muslim refugees could shake the foundation of German society.

“Merkel broke European laws by allowing over 1 million mostly young and male Muslims into a country that’s supposed to have a German culture,” said Christian Schulz, 41, a former supporter of Merkel’s party. “That was absolute madness.”