Chancellor Angela Merkel has been handed a harsh result in regional elections on Sunday with her party placing third in her own constituency.
In the changing nature of politics in Europe, Germany is not alone in witnessing new political parties entering the fray and capturing significant segments of voters.
The overtly anti-migrant Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) gained second place with 21% in the German eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, with most ballots counted. It was the party’s first bid for seats in the state.
In first place were the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) which maintained the top place with around 30%.
Merkel’s own party, the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered a record low result of 19%.
The outcome has given the rightwing populist AfD seats on the opposition benches in nine out of the country’s 16 regional parliaments just three years after being founded on an anti-euro platform in 2013.
The former communist Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state is Germany’s poorest and least populated with 1.6 million people. It had been governed for a decade by a coalition between the SPD and the CDU.
The area has taken in very few refugees, a quota system based on states' income and population saw the region receive 23,000 asylum seekers last year and many of those left to seek work elsewhere. Only 3.7% of the state’s population is of non-German background, one of the lowest rates in the country.
Nevertheless, the issue shot up to key prominence for some 50% of the residents, outstripping concerns over employment and economic regeneration.
Merkel’s liberal approach to the refugee crisis appears to have come under renewed pressure.
"The icing on the cake is that we have left Merkel's CDU behind us... maybe that is the beginning of the end of Merkel's time as chancellor," AfD’s regional leader Leif Erik Holm said.
On Sunday night, CDU candidate Lorenz Caffier said: “There was only one subject during the campaign, and that subject was the refugee policy. The refugee question was decisive.”
The election comes on the exact first anniversary of the government’s decision to accept thousands of refugees stranded at Budapest rail station. The consequences of those actions have been analysed heavily in the media over the last few weeks.
Regional elections in Berlin are scheduled for 18 September and a general election for 2017. Chancellor Merkel has been in post since 2005 and has not yet confirmed if she will run for a fourth term.
