Setback for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party in Berlin state election

BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party suffered another setback Sunday in German state elections as an upstart, anti-immigration party rides a wave of anger at the leader's open-door refugee policy, election results show.

The Social Democrats and Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party emerged from the Berlin state election Sunday as the strongest two parties, but both lost enough support that they likely won’t be able to continue a coalition government next year.

The new nationalist, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, won enough votes in Berlin to easily enter its 10th of 16 German state legislatures with 14.1% of the vote.

The Social Democrats won 21.6% of the vote — down nearly 7 percentage points from the previous election in 2011— while Merkel's Christian Democrats won 17.6%, down 6 percentage points.

Merkel said the result in Berlin was a "bitter" one, that she accepted responsibility for her party's poor performance and that she needed to do more to explain her policies on migrants.

Sunday's election comes two weeks after Merkel's party narrowly lost to the AfD in the chancellor's home region.

The strong showing by AfD stems from many voters upset with Merkel's policy that allowed more than 1 million refugees to come to Germany last year, mainly from Syria and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

German anti-immigration party seeks new gains in Berlin

“The AfD is marvelous,” said Eva-Maria Schmidt, 81, of Berlin, who said she would vote for the party. “The most important thing for me is preserving the German way of life and the German culture that we’ve spent generations building," she added. "I don’t want these people coming in and destroying that.”

Gains made by the AfD put pressure on the chancellor and her party as they look toward next year's general elections. Her party hit a four-year low in polls. A survey published last week by pollster Forsa showed only 32% of Germans support the Christian Democrats, while the AfD is polling nationally at 13%.

The AfD has steadily made strides since it was founded three years ago in protest over Germany's participation in bailouts for indebted countries that use the euro currency, such as Greece and Spain. Its more recent populist anti-immigration message mirrors other once-fringe right-wing political parties across Europe gaining in popularity, such as Austria's People's Party, the United Kingdom Independence Party and France's National Front.

The party's showing in the left-leaning, hip capital of Berlin is a symbolic political prize, said Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin. He said the key points in this election were national issues made local.

“It’s a question of integration,” he said. “For example, how is Berlin going to accomplish integrating the roughly 50,000 people (refugees) that are already here?”

Some residents said they worry about housing, with rising rental prices and a scarcity of apartments.

“It’s very important that the city has affordable housing for its residents,” said Anja Bressin, 44, a kindergarten teacher. “The cost of housing is one thing — some people can still afford it.”

Still, some voters say the refugees are just a scapegoat being used by politicians to make gains.

“They think that these foreign people are coming here and taking something from them, which isn’t true,” said Tillmann Einenkel, 21, a sound engineering student in Berlin.

Alexander Klose, 47, a curator and author in Berlin, just shrugged outside a school without revealing how he voted, saying populist gains are becoming a new normal — everywhere.

"Problems arise when people become polarized," he said. "It's happening here, but not as bad as in the U.S., where people can't even discuss issues with one another. When that happens, people get scared and keep their distance."