The news from Germany is rather grim. Angela Merkel will remain chancellor, but she will face stiff opposition from the the right-wing populist party Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD). The Social Democrats are a distant second and will not join Merkel’s CDU to continue the coalition government in Berlin:
A far-right party has won seats in the German parliament for the first time in half a century, in an election that saw Angela Merkel returned as chancellor for the third contest straight.
Official exit polls show the anti-Muslim and anti-immigration AfD winning 13.5 per cent of the vote – at the higher end of what surveys had suggested it might win.
Meanwhile, the centre-left SPD – the current coalition parties of Ms Merkel's CDU and a titan of German politics for 150 years – appears to have hit a historic low of just 20 per cent, its worst showing since the Second World War.
The leader and co-founder of the AfD, Alexander Gauland, recently stated that Germany should be proud of its Nazi soldiers in WWII, “who performed valiantly” .
Ironically, the AfD will now be represented in the Bundestag with 88 seats. The number “88” is code among Neo-Nazis for “Heil Hitler!”.
Merkel must now try to form a government with both the Greens and the Liberal FDP parties, which could take weeks or longer.