Merkel party takes hit in Berlin vote, anti-migrant AfD gains

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party suffered a bruising loss in Berlin state elections Sunday while the right-wing populist AfD again gained support, capitalising on anger over her open-door refugee policy. The anti-Islam Alternative for Germany party won around 12 percent, according to broadcasters' exit polls in the capital, which prides itself on being a hip, multicultural city -- gaining seats in the tenth of Germany's 16 states a year ahead of national elections. Merkel's Christian Democratic Union won just 18 percent -- its worst post-war result in the city, before or after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall -- according to the exit polls, likely spelling the end of its term as junior coalition partner to the Social Democrats, who won 23 percent.

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