German far-right doubles vote in eastern elections

BERLIN

Germany’s far-right AfD party has doubled its votes in state elections in the eastern state of Thuringia on Sunday, while Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives suffered the worst results in their history.

The anti-immigrant, Islamophobic Alternative for Germany (AfD) was projected to come in second with 23.8% of the vote, up from 10.6% in the last election, according to projections by public broadcaster ARD.

Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) could manage to win 22.5%, down 11 points from the last election, historically the worst result for the party in Thuringia.

The center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) was projected to win 8.5%, down from 12.4% they had secured in the last election in the ex-communist state.

The socialist Left Party (Die Linke) came first in the state elections by securing a record 29.7% of votes, up from 28.2% in the last election in 2014.

However, the party could not win enough votes to govern alone.