Berlin - Chancellor Angela Merkel has claimed a mandate to form a new German government with her conservative bloc. She's also vowing to win back voters from the nationalist Alternative for Germany party after it got enough support to enter parliament.

Projections show Merkel's conservative Union bloc finishing first in Sunday's election but well short of its election results in 2013. Supporters at party headquarters greeted her with cheers, applause and chants of "Angie!"

Merkel conceded that "of course we would have preferred a better result, that's completely clear." But she noted that her party has been in power for 12 years and said the last four years have been "extremely challenging."

Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has been harshly critical of Merkel and her decision to let in large numbers of migrants in the last two years. Merkel told her supporters that "we want to win back AfD voters" by solving the country's problems and addressing their concerns.

Projections for ARD and ZDF public television showed Schulz's Social Democrats on course for their worst result in post-World War II Germany in Sunday's election, with support of only 20-21 percent.

Schulz told supporters at party headquarters that "today is a difficult and bitter day." He added that "we have lost the federal election."

Schulz said that the party had been successful as the junior partner in Merkel's outgoing coalition government, citing its introduction of a national minimum wage among other things. But he conceded that "we clearly didn't manage to maintain and expand our traditional voter base."

Supporters of the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany party broke out in cheers as election polls indicated they'd emerged as the third-strongest party in Germany's election, and co-leader Alexander Gauland vowed they'd "change this country."

Gauland promised supporters Sunday that the party, known by its German initials AfD, would stay on the heels of the country's established parties.

Gauland says "we will chase them. We will chase Merkel or whomever else."

Exit polls suggest the AfD finished with about 13 percent of the vote, giving them seats in parliament for the first time. The Social Democrats were in second place with about 21 percent and Merkel's conservative bloc with about 33.5 percent.

Gauland says "this is a great day in the history of our party, we are in parliament! We will change this country."</s>'Hard Confrontations' Ahead With Far-Right Party In German Parliament, Merkel Says

Chancellor Angela Merkel may have won Germany's national election on Sunday, but her Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union faction only won a third of the vote, its poorest showing since 1949.

In another blow to the incumbent leader, German voters also are sending right-wing nationalists to the parliament or Bundestag for the first time in 60 years.

Exit polls suggest that decision was more of a protest vote than a German shift to the right.

But the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), which Merkel said nabbed 1 million of her voters, was jubilant about its better-than-expected returns of 12.6 percent across Germany, where an estimated 76 percent of registered voters turned out.

In eastern Germany, where Merkel grew up, the right-wing nationalist party did even better, earning 21.5 percent of the votes.

At a post-election party, Alexander Gauland, one of the party's top leaders and a new member of Parliament, vowed to hunt down Merkel and anyone else who stands in the way of AfD's agenda. What that agenda entails is a matter of some debate.

AfD spokespeople claim their goal is a sensible immigration policy and getting Germany out of the Eurozone so that German taxpayers stop paying for bailouts of other European countries that use the currency. Another AfD leader and new member of Parliament, Alice Weidel, has also vowed to start a parliamentary inquiry into Merkel and her refugee policy.

But the right-wing group's many critics – including every other party headed to the Bundestag – accuse AfD of deep-rooted xenophobia, anti-Semitism and having a nationalist agenda that threatens to tear Germany apart.

At a televised debate in Berlin on Sunday night, those parties pointed out Gauland's speech earlier this month, when he called on Germans to be proud of what their soldiers achieved during the First and Second World Wars.

During the televised debate, Merkel vowed there would be "hard confrontations" between her faction and the AfD in Parliament.

And within the AfD on Monday, internal squabbles erupted as well, when one of its co-chairs, Frauke Petry, walked out on an AfD press conference after saying she had no interest in serving in Parliament with the rest of her party's ticket. She suggested she would start her own version of the party, but without the extremist rhetoric.

"I'm happy we won because for 4 1/2 years, we worked hard to get into the Parliament," she told German Public Television ARD. "But unfortunately, our party frightens too many voters. We have in Germany an estimated 30 percent of voters who want sensible, conservative policies and can't find anyone to provide them, so I am available to fulfill that role."

Merkel says a top task on her agenda is to win back AfD voters to her conservative faction.

But she first must partner with one or more of the other parties in the next Parliament to begin her new term as chancellor. That will be a difficult negotiation that Merkel says could last until Christmas — or longer.

Martin Schulz, the leader of Merkel's most recent coalition partner, the Social Democrats, said in no uncertain terms that it won't be his party. His SPD ran on a social justice platform aimed at easing income disparity and improving welfare benefits and education, but it didn't persuade voters. The party had its poorest showing in many decades.

During the TV debate on Sunday night, Schulz blamed the loss on Merkel.

"This grand coalition was voted out," he said. "It's clear the people don't want it and the role that's been assigned us is to be the opposition."

Merkel fired back she was "sad the good work we did in the grand coalition is now being characterized this way."

She had campaigned on her record as a highly respected leader not only in Germany, but also internationally. She highlighted the country's record-low unemployment and strong economic growth under her leadership. But German unhappiness over the long-time leader's refugee policy — which allowed more than a million asylum seekers into the country since 2015 — was something from which Merkel never fully recovered.

"Merkel has become a very polarizing figure, something she never envisioned for herself, never saw happening," said Merkel biographer Stefan Kornelius, the foreign editor of Germany's daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. "As much as she pushed to the center on the refugee issue and brought in the left part of electoral voters in her camp," he said, she lost voters to the right of the spectrum.

As early as this week, Merkel's faction will start talks with two possible coalition partners: The pro-environmental Green party and the business-friendly Free Democratic Party, which Merkel said won 1.3 million voters from her faction.

The Green party and Free Democrats are hardly natural allies.

Merkel says under no circumstances will she ask the other two winners — the Left Party, which is the successor to the East German communists, and the AfD — to be in her government.

But even though Merkel and other mainstream politicians in Germany want to isolate AfD, they won't be able to ignore the party completely.

The right-wing party last year helped shift the debate on asylum seekers from one over integration into German society to one focused on increasing and speeding up deportations.

There is one thing Merkel and AfD more or less agree on: the need to engage the Trump administration. The right-wing nationalists have said they see a kindred spirit in President Trump, even if AfD's lead candidate Alice Weidel criticized his Twitter habit at a recent news conference

Merkel, during her only televised debate during the campaign, said Germany must work with the U.S. on issues like ISIS and Afghanistan and that despite their differences on diplomacy, trade and climate change, she will do her best to find common ground with the American leader.</s>BERLIN — Angela Merkel won a fourth term as German chancellor in a federal election that lifted a far-right party into parliament for the first time since the immediately after World War II, according to exit polls that point to growing polarization in Europe's biggest economy.

Merkel's Christian Democrat-led bloc took 32.5 percent to defeat Martin Schulz's Social Democrats, whose 20 percent is its worst result since the war, the exit polls for national broadcasters ARD and ZDF showed Sunday. Merkel's bloc dropped about 9 percentage points from the last election in 2013 to record its worst result since 1949.

The principal beneficiary was the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which joins the pro-business Free Democrats, the Greens and the post-communist Left in the Bundestag after it channeled voter rage at Merkel for allowing 1.3 million migrants to enter the country since 2015. The AfD's 13.5 percent in the exit poll means it stands to become the main opposition party in the lower house, the Bundestag.

"This is a bitter defeat for the SPD, and at the same time it's a historic watershed in our democracy," Thomas Oppermann, the Social Democrats' caucus chairman, said on ARD television. The SPD has decided to go into opposition and not renew the coalition with Merkel's party that has governed for the past four years, he said.

The result offers Merkel just one route to govern: adding the environmentalist Greens to a coalition with the Free Democrats, her party's traditional allies with whom she governed from 2009 to 2013, in a so-called Jamaica coalition —so named as the party colors of the CDU/CSU, the Greens and FDP match those of the country's flag. While it's a combination previously untested at national level, such a government was formed this year in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, and the chancellor has kept tabs on the region's progress ever since.

"Jamaica is doable," Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the CDU state prime minster of Saarland, told broadcaster ZDF.

Even as she faces the most splintered parliament in modern German history, Merkel's record-equaling fourth consecutive victory in a national election marks a revival of sorts of her political fortunes from the depths of the refugee crisis. It puts Germany's first female leader and the first from the formerly communist east on track to match Helmut Kohl's record of 16 years in office.

The first task for Merkel is to forge a coalition that enables her to govern, a process that's likely to take months. Once a government is in place, Merkel will face huge global expectations, such as shoring up the eurozone together with France, setting Europe's tone in its dealings with the U.S. under President Donald Trump, and dealing with the diesel-emissions crisis that threatens Germany's dominance in producing luxury cars.

The better-than-forecast performance of the Free Democrats allows them to re-enter the Bundestag after a four-year absence.

Schulz's defeat to Merkel means the Social Democrats haven't won an election since 2002, and raises question about his future as party leader. Schulz, a former president of the European Parliament, appeared to be a formidable contender when the SPD pulled virtually even with Merkel's bloc soon after he entered the race in January.</s>WASHINGTON (CNN) — Angela Merkel has won a fourth term as German Chancellor, but with her party’s lead in parliament cut and the country facing a surge in support for the far right.

Exit polls predicted the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) would become the third-largest party in the national parliament, the Bundestag, as German voters delivered a stinging blow to the traditional parties.

Merkel’s CDU and its sister CSU had their share of the vote slashed. Germany’s oldest party, the SPD, which had been in a “grand coalition” with Merkel, was consigned to opposition.

Addressing her supporters, a subdued Merkel said the result gave her a “mandate” to govern but that the AfD’s success would require “thorough analysis” to understand the concerns of their voters.

SPD leader Martin Schulz said the result was a “bitter disappointment” and the party would return to opposition. He lamented the success of the AfD, adding that it was a watershed moment.

The exit polls showed Merkel’s CDU/CSU group would be the largest in the Bundestag, but with its lead cut to 33.5% of the seats. The SPD fell to 21%, a result met with shock at the party’s headquarters. AfD is predicted to become the first far-right party to win seats in the Bundestag since 1960, with about 13% of seats, according to FORSA polling institute data commissioned by German public broadcaster ZDF.

Addressing her supporters, Merkel pledged to try and understand the concerns of voters who lent their support to the AfD. “There’s a big new challenge for us, and that is the entry of the AfD in the Bundestag,” she said. “We want to win back AfD voters.”

Rise of AfD

 The success of the AfD was declared as a “political earthquake” by Georg Pazderski, the local party leader in Berlin.

Figures show 21.5% of East Germans, including Berlin, voted for the far-right party, while 11% voted for the AfD in the West, according to exit polls done by Infratest Dimap.

Founded in 2013, the AfD has enjoyed a surge of support for its anti-immigration stance and its opposition to Merkel’s decision to open the country’s borders to over a million migrants, mainly those fleeing violence and persecution from the Middle East.

The AfD, which has also been accused of Islamophobia, garnered staunch support in east Germany where it became the second largest party after the CDU.

“For the first time, we have a conservative party right beside our Christian Democrats and this is because they moved more and more to the left and we moved into the vacuum,” Pazderski told CNN

“It’s a good day for democracy for Germany and for Europe.”

Meanwhile, Alice Weidel, a leading AfD politician, told supporters she will keep her promise to call for a committee to investigate Merkel’s decision to allow more than a million refugees into the country in 2015.

She had repeatedly claimed that Merkel should be “punished” for her decisions during the refugee crisis.

“People have given us their trust and we will keep our promise,” she said.

‘Jamaica coalition’

 With the SPD refusing to rejoin a coalition and no party willing to work with the AfD, it leaves Merkel with few options for a coalition.

The exit polls would suggest that Merkel may be forced to make a deal with the Green Party and FDP, to create a so-called “Jamaican coalition” — with the green and and yellow of the two parties combining with the black of the CDU to resemble the flag of Jamaica.

The pro-business FDP are expected to take 10% of seats with the Greens one percentage point behind on nine.

Coalition talks are unlikely to begin in earnest until final results have been announced on Monday.

To form a government, the parties involved must have a combined total of at least 50% of the seats in parliament.

There are likely to be several coalition options, and plenty of disagreement between the parties before they reach a deal.

Parliament will reconvene on October 24 with the new government in place</s>Chancellor Angela Merkel may have won Germany's national election on Sunday, but her Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union faction only won a third of the vote, its poorest showing since 1949.

In another blow to the incumbent leader, German voters also are sending right-wing nationalists to the parliament or Bundestag for the first time in 60 years.

Exit polls suggest that decision was more of a protest vote than a German shift to the right.

But the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), which Merkel said nabbed 1 million of her voters, was jubilant about its better-than-expected returns of 12.6 percent across Germany, where an estimated 76 percent of registered voters turned out.

In eastern Germany, where Merkel grew up, the right-wing nationalist party did even better, earning 21.5 percent of the votes.

At a post-election party, Alexander Gauland, one of the party's top leaders and a new member of Parliament, vowed to hunt down Merkel and anyone else who stands in the way of AfD's agenda. What that agenda entails is a matter of some debate.

AfD spokespeople claim their goal is a sensible immigration policy and getting Germany out of the Eurozone so that German taxpayers stop paying for bailouts of other European countries that use the currency. Another AfD leader and new member of Parliament, Alice Weidel, has also vowed to start a parliamentary inquiry into Merkel and her refugee policy.

But the right-wing group's many critics – including every other party headed to the Bundestag – accuse AfD of deep-rooted xenophobia, anti-Semitism and having a nationalist agenda that threatens to tear Germany apart.

At a televised debate in Berlin on Sunday night, those parties pointed out Gauland's speech earlier this month, when he called on Germans to be proud of what their soldiers achieved during the First and Second World Wars.

During the televised debate, Merkel vowed there would be "hard confrontations" between her faction and the AfD in Parliament.

And within the AfD on Monday, internal squabbles erupted as well, when one of its co-chairs, Frauke Petry, walked out on an AfD press conference after saying she had no interest in serving in Parliament with the rest of her party's ticket. She suggested she would start her own version of the party, but without the extremist rhetoric.

"I'm happy we won because for 4 1/2 years, we worked hard to get into the Parliament," she told German Public Television ARD. "But unfortunately, our party frightens too many voters. We have in Germany an estimated 30 percent of voters who want sensible, conservative policies and can't find anyone to provide them, so I am available to fulfill that role."

Merkel says a top task on her agenda is to win back AfD voters to her conservative faction.

But she first must partner with one or more of the other parties in the next Parliament to begin her new term as chancellor. That will be a difficult negotiation that Merkel says could last until Christmas — or longer.

Martin Schulz, the leader of Merkel's most recent coalition partner, the Social Democrats, said in no uncertain terms that it won't be his party. His SPD ran on a social justice platform aimed at easing income disparity and improving welfare benefits and education, but it didn't persuade voters. The party had its poorest showing in many decades.

During the TV debate on Sunday night, Schulz blamed the loss on Merkel.

"This grand coalition was voted out," he said. "It's clear the people don't want it and the role that's been assigned us is to be the opposition."

Merkel fired back she was "sad the good work we did in the grand coalition is now being characterized this way."

She had campaigned on her record as a highly respected leader not only in Germany, but also internationally. She highlighted the country's record-low unemployment and strong economic growth under her leadership. But German unhappiness over the long-time leader's refugee policy — which allowed more than a million asylum seekers into the country since 2015 — was something from which Merkel never fully recovered.

"Merkel has become a very polarizing figure, something she never envisioned for herself, never saw happening," said Merkel biographer Stefan Kornelius, the foreign editor of Germany's daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. "As much as she pushed to the center on the refugee issue and brought in the left part of electoral voters in her camp," he said, she lost voters to the right of the spectrum.

As early as this week, Merkel's faction will start talks with two possible coalition partners: The pro-environmental Green party and the business-friendly Free Democratic Party, which Merkel said won 1.3 million voters from her faction.

The Green party and Free Democrats are hardly natural allies.

Merkel says under no circumstances will she ask the other two winners — the Left Party, which is the successor to the East German communists, and the AfD — to be in her government.

But even though Merkel and other mainstream politicians in Germany want to isolate AfD, they won't be able to ignore the party completely.

The right-wing party last year helped shift the debate on asylum seekers from one over integration into German society to one focused on increasing and speeding up deportations.

There is one thing Merkel and AfD more or less agree on: the need to engage the Trump administration. The right-wing nationalists have said they see a kindred spirit in President Trump, even if AfD's lead candidate Alice Weidel criticized his Twitter habit at a recent news conference

Merkel, during her only televised debate during the campaign, said Germany must work with the U.S. on issues like ISIS and Afghanistan and that despite their differences on diplomacy, trade and climate change, she will do her best to find common ground with the American leader.</s>BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives beat their rivals on Sunday to win her a fourth term in an election that will also bring a far-right party into Germany's parliament for the first time in more than half a century, exit polls showed.

After shock election results last year, from Britain's vote to leave the European Union to the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, many look to Merkel to rally a bruised liberal Western order, tasking her with leading a post-Brexit Europe.

She must now form a coalition government - an arduous process that could take months as all potential partners are unsure whether they really want to share power with her.

Merkel's conservative bloc won 32.5 percent of the vote, making them the largest parliamentary group, an exit poll for broadcaster ARD indicated. However, that was down from 41.5 percent in the last election, in 2013.

Support for their closest rivals, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) which are currently junior partners in a so-called "grand coalition" with Merkel, slumped to 20.0 percent - a new post-war low. The SPD ruled out a re-run of that tie-up.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) stunned the establishment by finishing third and entering parliament for the first time with 13.5 percent of the vote.

Merkel, Europe's longest serving leader, joins the late Helmut Kohl, her mentor who reunified Germany, and Konrad Adenauer, who led Germany's rebirth after World War Two, as the only post-war chancellors to win four national elections.

SPD deputy leader Manuela Schwesig said her party would now go into opposition. That would rule out a re-run of Merkel's existing alliance with the SPD.

An alternative coalition for Merkel would be a three-way tie-up with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the ecologist Greens. That is a combination as yet untested at national level and known as the "Jamaica" option because the three parties' colors are those of the black-gold-green Jamaica national flag.

Both the FDP and the environmentalist Greens have played down the prospect of a Jamaica coalition, but as they have been out of government for four and 12 years respectively, they may be lured into an alliance by the prospect of power.

Whatever the make-up of her coalition, Merkel, 63, faces four years of government in a fragmented parliament after the return of the FDP - unrepresented at national level for the last four years - and the arrival of the AfD.

Founded in 2013 by an anti-euro group of academics, the AfD has morphed into an anti-immigration party that has profited from Merkel's 2015 decision to leave German borders open to over 1 million migrants, most of them fleeing war in the Middle East.

The party's entry into the national parliament heralds the beginning of a new era in German politics that will see more robust debate and a departure from the steady, consensus-based approach that has marked the post-war period.

The other parties elected to the Bundestag all refuse to work with the AfD, which says it will press for Merkel to be "severely punished" for opening the door to refugees and migrants.

After the AfD hurt her conservatives in regional elections last year, Merkel, a pastor's daughter who grew up in Communist East Germany, wondered if she should run for re-election.

But with the migrant issue under control this year, she threw herself into a punishing campaign schedule, presenting herself as an anchor of stability in an uncertain world.</s>Angela Merkel won a fourth term as chancellor in Sunday’s election, but her victory was overhsadowed by the entry of the far-right party, Alternative for Germany, into Parliament for the first time in more than 60 years.</s>Chancellor Angela Merkel may have won Germany's national election on Sunday, but her Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union faction only won a third of the vote, its poorest showing since 1949.

In another blow to the incumbent leader, German voters also are sending right-wing nationalists to the parliament or Bundestag for the first time in 60 years.

Exit polls suggest that decision was more of a protest vote than a German shift to the right.

But the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), which Merkel said nabbed 1 million of her voters, was jubilant about its better-than-expected returns of 12.6 percent across Germany, where an estimated 76 percent of registered voters turned out.

In eastern Germany, where Merkel grew up, the right-wing nationalist party did even better, earning 21.5 percent of the votes.

At a post-election party, Alexander Gauland, one of the party's top leaders and a new member of Parliament, vowed to hunt down Merkel and anyone else who stands in the way of AfD's agenda. What that agenda entails is a matter of some debate.

AfD spokespeople claim their goal is a sensible immigration policy and getting Germany out of the Eurozone so that German taxpayers stop paying for bailouts of other European countries that use the currency. Another AfD leader and new member of Parliament, Alice Weidel, has also vowed to start a parliamentary inquiry into Merkel and her refugee policy.

But the right-wing group's many critics – including every other party headed to the Bundestag – accuse AfD of deep-rooted xenophobia, anti-Semitism and having a nationalist agenda that threatens to tear Germany apart.

At a televised debate in Berlin on Sunday night, those parties pointed out Gauland's speech earlier this month, when he called on Germans to be proud of what their soldiers achieved during the First and Second World Wars.

During the televised debate, Merkel vowed there would be "hard confrontations" between her faction and the AfD in Parliament.

And within the AfD on Monday, internal squabbles erupted as well, when one of its co-chairs, Frauke Petry, walked out on an AfD press conference after saying she had no interest in serving in Parliament with the rest of her party's ticket. She suggested she would start her own version of the party, but without the extremist rhetoric.

"I'm happy we won because for 4 1/2 years, we worked hard to get into the Parliament," she told German Public Television ARD. "But unfortunately, our party frightens too many voters. We have in Germany an estimated 30 percent of voters who want sensible, conservative policies and can't find anyone to provide them, so I am available to fulfill that role."

Merkel says a top task on her agenda is to win back AfD voters to her conservative faction.

But she first must partner with one or more of the other parties in the next Parliament to begin her new term as chancellor. That will be a difficult negotiation that Merkel says could last until Christmas — or longer.

Martin Schulz, the leader of Merkel's most recent coalition partner, the Social Democrats, said in no uncertain terms that it won't be his party. His SPD ran on a social justice platform aimed at easing income disparity and improving welfare benefits and education, but it didn't persuade voters. The party had its poorest showing in many decades.

During the TV debate on Sunday night, Schulz blamed the loss on Merkel.

"This grand coalition was voted out," he said. "It's clear the people don't want it and the role that's been assigned us is to be the opposition."

Merkel fired back she was "sad the good work we did in the grand coalition is now being characterized this way."

She had campaigned on her record as a highly respected leader not only in Germany, but also internationally. She highlighted the country's record-low unemployment and strong economic growth under her leadership. But German unhappiness over the long-time leader's refugee policy — which allowed more than a million asylum seekers into the country since 2015 — was something from which Merkel never fully recovered.

"Merkel has become a very polarizing figure, something she never envisioned for herself, never saw happening," said Merkel biographer Stefan Kornelius, the foreign editor of Germany's daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. "As much as she pushed to the center on the refugee issue and brought in the left part of electoral voters in her camp," he said, she lost voters to the right of the spectrum.

As early as this week, Merkel's faction will start talks with two possible coalition partners: The pro-environmental Green party and the business-friendly Free Democratic Party, which Merkel said won 1.3 million voters from her faction.

The Green party and Free Democrats are hardly natural allies.

Merkel says under no circumstances will she ask the other two winners — the Left Party, which is the successor to the East German communists, and the AfD — to be in her government.

But even though Merkel and other mainstream politicians in Germany want to isolate AfD, they won't be able to ignore the party completely.

The right-wing party last year helped shift the debate on asylum seekers from one over integration into German society to one focused on increasing and speeding up deportations.

There is one thing Merkel and AfD more or less agree on: the need to engage the Trump administration. The right-wing nationalists have said they see a kindred spirit in President Trump, even if AfD's lead candidate Alice Weidel criticized his Twitter habit at a recent news conference

Merkel, during her only televised debate during the campaign, said Germany must work with the U.S. on issues like ISIS and Afghanistan and that despite their differences on diplomacy, trade and climate change, she will do her best to find common ground with the American leader.</s>BERLIN — An antiestablishment, nationalist party won a foothold in Germany’s parliament Sunday, delivering one of the biggest jolts to the country’s political establishment in the postwar era and sending its multiparty system into uncharted waters.

Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which wants to limit European integration, cut back on immigration and lessen Germany’s focus on Holocaust remembrance, captured more than 13% of the vote in an election that saw eroding support for mainstream parties, exit polls and early results showed.

That means that for the first time in more than half a century, a party will enter the national legislature that holds views well to the right of the center-right bloc led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose Christian Democrats won the most votes Sunday. Parties must win 5% of the vote to seat representatives in the German Bundestag. Merkel’s center-right alliance finished well ahead of its closest competitor, the center-left Social Democrats, 32.7% to 20%, according to projections based on exit polls and early results released by ARD public television.

Backers reacted with jubilation in a Berlin nightclub the party rented out to celebrate the results. “We are going to chase down Merkel,” Alexander Gauland, who co-led the AfD ticket, said on Sunday night, “and get our country back for the people.”

An expanded version of this article appears on WSJ.com

U.S. plans to skirt North Korea’s coast in show of force

Brothers in arms: the tragedy in small-town U.S.A.</s>BERLIN (AP) — The latest on Germany's national election (all times local):

Election officials confirm Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc has come first in Germany's election, paving the way for her to lead the country for a fourth term.

The federal election authority said early Monday that Merkel's Christian Democrats and the Bavarian-only Christian Social Union combined for 33 percent of the vote.

Challenger Martin Schulz' center-left Social Democratic Party, which has joined Merkel's party in a "grand coalition" for the past four years, finished second with 20.5 percent.

Alternative for Germany, which campaigned on an anti-refugee, socially conservative message, was third with 12.6 percent. It will enter federal parliament for the first time.

The nationalist Alternative for Germany party has won the biggest share of the vote in the eastern state of Saxony during Sunday's parliamentary elections.

The state is the birthplace of the group Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, which has staged anti-Muslim demonstrations in the state capital Dresden since 2014.

Saxony has also seen numerous high-profile attacks on migrants and refugee shelters in recent years, prompting the local government to launch a public relations campaign to improve its image abroad.

State election authorities say the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany, or AfD, received 27 percent of the votes in Saxony during Sunday's national election. That's a tenth of a percentage point more than Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats received in the state.

Saxony is the home of AfD figurehead leader Frauke Petry.

Germany's main industrial lobby group is calling for a swift coalition deal to form a new government following Sunday's parliamentary elections.

BDI chief Dieter Kempf says companies need a clear signal "in order to avert damaging Germany."

Chancellor Angela Merkel looks set to form a government again if her Christian Democratic Union can reach an agreement with the pro-business Free Democrats and the left-wing Greens parties.

Merkel's current coalition partner, the Social Democrats, say they plan to go into opposition after suffering their worst election result since World War II.

Kempf says it is important to invest in Germany's ailing infrastructure. He also is slamming the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, which received about 13 percent of the vote Sunday, saying that "at its core it stands against everything that makes Germany strong."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has held onto her legislative constituency in the far northeast of the country.

Merkel received 44 percent of the votes in the district where she was first elected in 1990 — more than twice the number of votes her closest rival from the nationalist Alternative for Germany took.

The result nevertheless reflects some of the disgruntlement expressed by voters toward Merkel in this election. It is down more than 12 percentage points from the election in 2013.

German internet users are flocking to Twitter to express their opposition to the surging nationalist party AfD.

The upstart Alternative for Germany is expected to win close to 100 seats in the German parliament after taking about 13 percent of the vote in Sunday's federal election.

Using the hashtag #87Prozent — German for "87 percent" — Twitter users who didn't vote for AfD are stating their hopes for the coming four years.

Corinna Leppin posted: "Less populism and hatred, more solidarity and politics that tackles problems."

Another user, Jonathan Hirsch, wrote that he hopes "voters' concerns will be treated in such a way that they'll never vote for populists in protest again."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is pledging to form a stable government for Germany and is making clear that she doesn't plan to try running a minority government.

Merkel's current coalition partners, the center-left Social Democrats, said after Sunday's election that they won't join the next government. Germany has no tradition of minority governments, so that would leave Merkel trying to thrash out an untried coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats and left-leaning Greens.

Asked on German public television whether a minority government of just her own conservative Union bloc is conceivable, Merkel replied: "I think that stable German governments are a value in itself, that our whole parliamentary system is different from those in countries that have a long tradition of minority governments."

She added: "I don't see it. I have the intention of achieving a stable government in Germany."

Chancellor Angela Merkel is appealing to other German parties to show responsibility "in stormy times" in a bitter exchange with her defeated challenger.

Center-left challenger Martin Schulz, whose Social Democrats were the junior partners in Merkel's outgoing government, said shortly after exit polls showed his party headed for a historic election defeat Sunday that it would go into opposition.

In a television discussion involving major party leaders, he accused Merkel of conducting a "scandalous" campaign that avoided debate and created "a vacuum" that the nationalist Alternative for Germany party filled.

Turning to the leaders of the smaller Free Democrats and Greens, her likely future coalition partners, he said: "To keep the chancellery, Ms. Merkel will make any concession."

Merkel said: "We live in stormy times, we know that. So I appeal to everyone to keep taking responsibility."

Hundreds of anti-Alternative for Germany demonstrators have descended upon the club where the nationalist party's leaders are celebrating their third-place finish in Germany's election.

Shouting "All Berlin hates the AfD!" ''Nazi pigs!" and other slogans Sunday, several protesters threw bottles as police kept them away from the building in Berlin.

The protesters had been holding a demonstration against the AfD in nearby Alexanderplatz earlier in the evening.

The anti-migrant AfD party won about 13 percent of the vote in Sunday's election, meaning it will enter Germany's parliament for the first time. Major Jewish groups have also expressed alarm and dismay about the nationalists' strong showing on Sunday.

Major Jewish groups are expressing alarm and dismay that the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany has won seats in Germany's parliament.

German Central Council of Jews President Josef Schuster says the party, known by its German initials AfD, "tolerates far-right thoughts and agitates against minorities."

He said he expects Germany's other parties will "reveal the true face of the AfD and unmask their empty, populist promises."

The head of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, congratulated Chancellor Angela Merkel on securing a fourth term, calling her a "true friend of Israel and the Jewish people." He denounced the AfD as "a disgraceful reactionary movement which recalls the worst of Germany's past."

Among the AfD remarks condemned by Jewish groups, co-leader Alexander Gauland recently said no other country has faced up to past crimes the way Germany has and the Nazi years "today don't affect our identity anymore."

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has congratulated the nationalist Alternative for Germany party on entering the German parliament.

Le Pen, who lost France's presidential election to Emmanuel Macron earlier this year, wrote on Twitter: "Bravo to our allies from AfD for this historic score! It's a new symbol of the awakening of the peoples of Europe."

Projections showed Alternative for Germany, or AfD, finishing third in Sunday's election with about 13 percent of the vote — enough for the party to enter parliament for the first time.

The co-leader of the anti-migrant nationalist Alternative for Germany, which will be entering parliament for the first time, says her party will provide "constructive opposition."

The party, known by its German initials AfD, finished in third place in Sunday's election with about 13 percent of the vote, according to exit polls and early counting.

In Berlin, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel told supporters "millions of voters have entrusted us with the task of constructive opposition work in parliament."

Other parties in parliament have pledged not to work with the AfD and the Greens were particularly strong Sunday night, with co-leaders Katrin Goering-Eckardt and Cem Ozdemir telling supporters that there were "again Nazis in parliament."

Goering-Eckardt told the cheering crowd: "We will not let one single attack on German democracy stand."

Chancellor Angela Merkel's often-awkward Bavarian conservative ally says the German election result shows that their conservative bloc has an "open flank" to its right.

Horst Seehofer leads the Christian Social Union, the Bavaria-only partner of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. The two campaign together in national elections and have a joint caucus in the national government.

Merkel and Seehofer were frequently at odds at the height of Europe's migrant crisis, with Seehofer demanding an annual cap on migrant numbers that Merkel rejected.

Projections Sunday showed the Union bloc finishing first but well behind its result four years ago, with AfD becoming the first party right of the conservatives to win seats in about 60 years.

Seehofer said the conservatives have "an open flank to the right, so it is particularly important that we close this flank with ... clear political positions."

Chancellor Angela Merkel has claimed a mandate to form a new German government with her conservative bloc. She's also vowing to win back voters from the nationalist Alternative for Germany party after it got enough support to enter parliament.

Projections show Merkel's conservative Union bloc finishing first in Sunday's election but well short of its election results in 2013. Supporters at party headquarters greeted her with cheers, applause and chants of "Angie!"

Merkel conceded that "of course we would have preferred a better result, that's completely clear." But she noted that her party has been in power for 12 years and said the last four years have been "extremely challenging."

Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has been harshly critical of Merkel and her decision to let in large numbers of migrants in the last two years. Merkel told her supporters that "we want to win back AfD voters" by solving the country's problems and addressing their concerns.

Projections for ARD and ZDF public television showed Schulz's Social Democrats on course for their worst result in post-World War II Germany in Sunday's election, with support of only 20-21 percent.

Schulz told supporters at party headquarters that "today is a difficult and bitter day." He added that "we have lost the federal election."

Schulz said that the party had been successful as the junior partner in Merkel's outgoing coalition government, citing its introduction of a national minimum wage among other things. But he conceded that "we clearly didn't manage to maintain and expand our traditional voter base."

Supporters of the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany party broke out in cheers as election polls indicated they'd emerged as the third-strongest party in Germany's election, and co-leader Alexander Gauland vowed they'd "change this country."

Gauland promised supporters Sunday that the party, known by its German initials AfD, would stay on the heels of the country's established parties.

Gauland says "we will chase them. We will chase Merkel or whomever else."

Exit polls suggest the AfD finished with about 13 percent of the vote, giving them seats in parliament for the first time. The Social Democrats were in second place with about 21 percent and Merkel's conservative bloc with about 33.5 percent.

Gauland says "this is a great day in the history of our party, we are in parliament! We will change this country."

Leaders of Germany's Social Democratic Party say they plan to go into the opposition after their disappointing second-place finish in Germany's election.

The Social Democrats have been Chancellor Angela Merkel's junior coalition partner for the last four years but finished with only about 21 percent of the vote Sunday, according to early exit polls.

Their decision complicates things for Merkel, who will have to look to other parties to form a new government coalition.

The head of the Social Democrat's parliamentary caucus, Thomas Oppermann, and party deputy leader Manuela Schwesig both said immediately after the results the party would go into opposition.

Schweisig said on ZDF television "for us it is very clear that the voters have given us the task of going ahead as the strongest party in opposition."

Exit polls suggest Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc has finished first in Germany's election, putting her in a position to lead the country for a fourth term.

Exit polls conducted for public television channels ARD and ZDF suggested support for Merkel's conservatives was between 32.5 and 33.5 percent in Sunday's vote.

They indicate challenger Martin Schulz's Social Democrats trailed in second place with between 20 and 21 percent support.

The polls also suggested that the anti-migrant, nationalist Alternative for Germany party will enter the national parliament for the first time with 13 to 13.5 percent support.

Mainstream German political parties are urging voters via Twitter to cast their ballots against the nationalist anti-migrant Alternative for Germany party.

Using the party's German initials, AfD, the Social Democratic Party tweeted Sunday: "The AfD is a right-wing extremist party that doesn't belong in parliament. Talk to your friends and relatives. And get voting!"

AfD's Frauke Petry, a party chairwoman, fired back in a tweet of her own: "Live with it comrades, the trend to the left is over today."

The Greens also targeted the AfD, saying "For integration and tolerance! For a clear YES to a strong Europe! Against right-populism and AfD!"

To that Petry answered: "The bill for your hate tirade will be punctually at 1800" — or 6 p.m., when the polls close in Germany.

The AfD is expected to enter the German parliament for the first time after Sunday's vote.

Germany's federal election authority says national voter turnout is slightly down so far compared to the last election in 2013.

Polls have been open since 8 a.m. and the Federal Returning Officer said that as of 2 p.m. Sunday 41.1 percent of eligible voters had cast their ballots.

That was down slightly from 2013, where 41.4 percent of eligible voters had cast their ballots by 2 p.m. That election ended up with 71.5 percent overall participation.

The office urged Germans to get out and cast their ballots, noting that polls were open until 6 p.m. Absentee ballots aren't considered as part of the turnout and there are expected to be a record number this year.

Angela Merkel, who is seeking a fourth term as chancellor in Germany, has voted at a polling station near her home in Berlin's Mitte neighborhood.

Merkel and her husband Joachim Sauer, who shielded both of them with an umbrella against the cold drizzle, were surrounded by dozens of reporters as they cast their vote Sunday. The couple smiled and nodded at bystanders.

The chancellor's conservative bloc has a healthy lead in the polls. Surveys in the last week show Merkel's bloc leading with between 34 to 37 percent support, followed by the Social Democrats with 21 to 22 percent.

First exit polls are expected after German's polling stations close at 6 p.m. (1600GMT).

Chancellor Angela Merkel is widely expected to win a fourth term in office as Germans go to the polls in an election that is also likely to see the farthest right-wing party in 60 years, the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany, win seats in parliament.

Merkel has campaigned on her record as chancellor for 12 years, emphasizing the country's record-low unemployment, strong economic growth, balanced budget and growing international importance.

That's helped keep her conservative bloc well atop the polls ahead of Sunday's election over the center-left Social Democrats of challenger Martin Schulz.

Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Party and its sister party, the Bavaria-only Christian Social Union, have governed Germany for the last four years with the Social Democrats in a "grand coalition." Most forecasts suggest that coalition will win another majority in Sunday's election outcome, but several different coalition government combinations could be possible.

The latest polls had Merkel's conservative bloc at 34 to 37 percent support, the center-left Social Democrats with 21 to 22 percent and the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany, or AfD, with 10 to 13 percent support.

Germany's president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, appealed to his fellow citizens to go out and vote, because "these elections are also about the future of democracy and the future of Europe."

Pollsters say many of the 61.5 million Germans who were eligible to vote had remained undecided until the very last moment.

Countries across Europe have seen a rise of anti-migrant and populist parties in recent elections and several German pollsters have forecast that the anti-migrant, anti-Europe Alternative for Germany may come in as Germany's third-strongest party.

The AfD appears assured of gaining seats in the national parliament for the first time.

The AfD has led an aggressive campaign that was dominated by hostile slogans against the more than 1 million mostly Muslim migrants who arrived in Germany in the last two years. They're aiming to grab votes from conservatives who in the past have voted for Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, but are unhappy with her welcoming stance toward refugees.

In addition to the Social Democrats and the AfD, the Greens, the Free Democratic Party and the Left Party were all poised to enter parliament with poll numbers between 8 and 11 percent.
Exit polls indicate Merkel has won a fourth term in power, and that Alternative for Germany will enter the Bundestag for the first time as the third largest party.