Berlin’s big election blow for Merkel – exit polls

Voters turned to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), which with 12.9 percent of the vote will enter its 10th regional assembly among the country’s 16 states. Another voter Harf Zimmermann added.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Conservatives have suffered their second electoral blow in two weeks, according to exit polls. However, he blamed his party’s historic losses in Berlin primarily on local issues. In particular, they want a cap of 200,000 refugees per year but Merkel has rejected this outright.

On Saturday, in another tacit acknowledgement of the negative reaction to her migrant policy among some voters, she said she wanted to drop her “we can do it” rallying cry, much used previous year to illustrate her welcoming stance on migrants. Given a dearth of options in her party, however, she is still the most likely candidate.

Initial projections from broadcaster ZDF put Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) on 18 percent, down from 23.3 percent in the last election in 2011.

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 and Left party.

The losses for both the biggest parties point to the further fragmentation of Germany’s political landscape, raising the possibility of different coalitions in future.

Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) has a national majority but in Berlin serves as junior coalition partner to Mayor Michael Mueller’s centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), traditionally the strongest party in this city of 3.5 million.

Fresh gains in long-divided Berlin – where the AfD has polled 14 percent, a year ahead of national elections – would spell another setback for Merkel, whose open-door policy brought one million asylum-seekers to Germany last year. It is largely expected to form a three-party coalition along with the Left and the Greens, which witnessed a 2.3 percent drop from 2011.

He also voiced concern about the AfD, a party he labelled “the wolf in sheep’s clothing”.

Germany took in one million asylum seekers a year ago, and over 70,000 of them came to Berlin, with many housed in the cavernous hangars of the Nazi-built former Tempelhof airport, once the hub for the Cold War-era Berlin airlift.

Although there are two days to go for the people to cast their votes, recent polls indicate that on issues around privacy and data protection, Berlin will preserve its unique status.

With the AfD’s strong showing, national party co-chairman Joerg Meuthen said his party was strongly positioned for next year’s national elections.

Commentators said the result indicated that the party looked poised to enter the lower house of parliament in 2017.