Right-wing challenge to Merkel’s party fizzles

German chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic party (CDU) has headed off a challenge from a right-wing populist party, winning convincingly in local elections in Lower Saxony.The CDU received 34.4% of votes, ahead of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) with 31.2% and the Greens with 10.9%, the state’s electoral commission announced yesterday.The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party received just 7.8%in Sunday’s poll, less than the 12% that had been predicted, although it attained double-digit results in some areas.The vote was a key test for Merkel after her party was beaten into third place in last weekend’s elections in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern following a big swing to the anti-immigration AfD.Merkel has faced criticism over her refugee policy, which saw the country accept more than one million refugees last year.The Lower Saxony vote represented a swing of 2.6% against the CDU since the last municipal elections in the state in 2011.But the swing was even bigger against the SPD, which currently heads up a state coalition government under premier Stephan Weil with the environmentalist Greens.Both parties suffered a loss in support of over 3%. The city state of Berlin goes to the polls next weekend.Polls show the SPD as remaining the biggest party in the Berlin legislature but with AfD scoring up to 15% of the vote.The CDU seized on the results in Lower Saxony as a positive signal for the party’s success at the next elections in the state set down for 2018.“This is a good starting point for the next state election campaign in Lower Saxony,” said CDU national secretary peter Tauber.The Free Democratic Party and the Left Party received 4.8 and 3.3% respectively in Sunday’s election.A total of 22 parties stood for the 29,116 council seats that were up for grabs in the poll and voter turnout was 55.5%, higher than the 52.5% recorded five years ago.