German far-right savors election success, eyes power

BERLIN—Germany' s governing parties have staved off another crisis for now with wins in two state elections in the country's east, but a far-right opponent that surged to finish a strong second savored the prospect of harrying mainstream rivals in its heartland Monday.

Alternative for Germany, or AfD, proclaimed that it can't be frozen out of power forever after it nearly tripled its support in Saxony and almost doubled it in neighboring Brandenburg on Sunday compared with five years earlier.

The far- right AfD took around a quarter of the vote between the two states, reflecting its establishment as a major political force — particularly in the excommunist east — after the 2015 migrant influx.

But it fell short of beating the traditional parties that have governed those regions since German reunification in 1990, a possibility that seemed likely a few weeks ago and could have further destabilized Chancellor Angela Merkel's struggling coalition government in Berlin.

It remains uncertain whether her alliance will survive until the next national election, due in 2021. That is likely to become clear only in December, when the center-left Social Democrats — Merkel's junior partners in Berlin — finish choosing a new leadership from a 17-candidate field and mull the alliance's future.

The leader of Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, renewed her long-standing insistence that her party won't work with AfD. Asked if it can continue freezing out a force that wins a quarter of the vote, she replied: “Yes, we can.” She argued that such a stance had attracted voters.

But she acknowledged that the outcome in Saxony, where her party won but now faces the prospect of patching together a three-way alliance with the environmentalist Greens, was a “difficult result.” In Brandenburg, the Social Democrats face a similar task after their outgoing government lost its majority.