Merz’s conservatives ahead but far-right party the biggest winner in German local elections

BERLIN (AP) – Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party finished first in municipal polls in Germany’s most populous state, but the biggest winner in the first electoral test since Merz’s government took power was the far-right Alternative for Germany, which nearly tripled its showing compared with five years ago.

Final results Monday showed that Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union took 33.3% of the vote in Sunday’s elections for councils and mayors in North Rhine-Westphalia, a western region that is home to about 18 million people. Its partners in a national government that so far has failed to lift the country’s mood, the center-left Social Democrats – for whom the state was long a reliable heartland – took 22.1%.

Both were slightly below their score in the last municipal elections, in 2020. But Alternative for Germany, or AfD, took 14.5% of the vote – a gain of 9.4% points. The anti-immigration AfD is strongest in the formerly communist and less prosperous east, but Sunday’s showing underlined its arrival in recent years as a force in western Germany too.

In Germany’s national election in February, AfD took 20.8% of the vote to finish second and become the largest opposition party. In North Rhine-Westphalia, it took 16.8% in February.

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel celebrated what she called “a huge success” on Sunday.

AfD’s rise has been fueled by discontent over large numbers of migrants but also other issues, including a stagnant economy and the war in Ukraine. Its support has remained high despite Germany’s domestic intelligence agency classifying it as a right-wing extremist organization, a designation that it suspended after AfD launched a legal challenge.

Its success in February followed the collapse of a center-left national government that had become notorious for squabbling. Merz’s conservative-led administration, which took office in May, has taken a tougher approach to migration and is trying to revitalize the economy, but has also drawn unfavorable attention for internal disagreements.

Stefan Marschall, a political science professor at Duesseldorf’s Heinrich Heine University, said that AfD “is in a position to organize the discontent” with the traditional mainstream parties.

“It succeeded in that, particularly in the regions that feel left behind,” he told Phoenix television. He noted that AfD didn’t even field candidates everywhere on Sunday, which meant that its support was “somewhat underrated” by the outcome.

In three of the less prosperous cities in the industrial Ruhr region, AfD mayoral candidates garnered enough support to advance to runoff votes on Sept. 28 against candidates from mainstream parties. AfD contenders will face Social Democrats in Gelsenkirchen and Duisburg, and a Christian Democrat in Hagen.

Merz wrote on social network X that his CDU is “clearly the strongest force” in North Rhine-Westphalia. “We are addressing the problems at national, state and municipal level with determination,” he said. “The solutions are not on the fringe, but in the center – with answers for our economy, migration and security.”

The biggest drop in support on Sunday was for the environmentalist, left-leaning Greens, who fell to 13.5% from 20% five years ago. The Greens are now in opposition nationally after ex-Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unpopular government collapsed, but they’re part of a state government in North Rhine-Westphalia that is led by conservative governor Hendrik Wüst, a prominent figure in Merz’s party. That government wasn’t up for election Sunday.