Germany’s rapidly rising Eurosceptics have dealt a fresh embarrassing blow to Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democrats party in state elections in Hamburg.
Alternative for Germany (AfD), which wants to force crisis-hit countries such as Greece out of the single currency, looked likely to win its first seats in a west German parliament.
The AfD vote was hovering just above the 5 per cent threshold needed to win seats in parliament in initial projections based on a partial vote count.
The AfD made significant gains from Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats, who saw their share of the vote fall by a projected 5.9 per cent in one of their worst results in recent times.
Hamburg, one of three city states along with Berlin and Bremen, has been a fortress for the centre-left Social Demoracts since the Second World War, and the winner of the vote was never in doubt.
AfD supporters react to preliminary election results in Hamburg
But this was the first time support for the AfD has been tested in a west German state, after it made striking gains in the less affluent east last year.
It is also the first election since the anti-Islam and anti-immigrant Pegida movement swept though the German political scene.
Unlike Eurosceptic parties in other countries, the AfD is not opposed to the EU, but wants an end to the single currency, starting with the expulsion of poorly performing economies like Greece.
AfD gains in Hamburg were not as dramatic as last year’s in Thuringia, where it won 12 per cent of the vote, or Brandenburg and Saxony, in each of which it won around 10 per cent
“I am pleased that we have entered parliament,” the party’s local leader, Jörn Kruse, said. “I am confident that the count will confirm what the forecast says.”
Jörn Kruse of the AfD political party
There was good news for the Free Democrats, Germany’s closest equivalent to the Liberal Democrats, who were wipeed out in federal elections last year in a backlash against their coalition with Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats.
Projections saw the Free Democrats winning their first seats since that debacle, with around 7 per cent of the vote.
The Social Democrats lost their absolute majority, but looked set to dominate any coalition with 47 per cent.
