AfD Success Fractures German’s Political Space Despite Merkel’s Victory.

Angela Merkel will continue as the German Chancellor fourth term bringing her alongside Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl as the only postwar chancellors to win four national elections.

This was the worst performance for the two major parties in Germany since 1949. The biggest beneficiary of that fracturing political space is the populist far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

For Merkel, for being the first woman and the first east German to hold the position, it is a remarkable achievement.

Despite Merkel´s Christian Democratic Union victory, it lost significant grounds. Her challenger, Martin Schulz, from the Social Democrats, led his party to its worst result since the founding of the German Federal Republic. Schultz said he would not go into another grand coalition with Merkel, preferring to rebuild his party as the leader of the opposition instead. Merkel is now expected to try to build a new coalition with the Liberals and the Green party.

The AfD success is remarkable, it’s the first time since the Second World War that a party professing such xenophobic, anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic views has been voted into the Bundestag. This feat has fractured the German political landscape.