Photo: Jens Büttner/DPA/AFPGermans voted in a general election on Sunday expected to hand Chancellor Angela Merkel a fourth term while the hard-right nationalist AfD party is tipped to make history by winning its first seats in the national parliament. Surveys suggest Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU alliance has a double-digit lead over its nearest rivals, the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by Martin Schulz. Mainstream parties however have already ruled out talking to the anti-Islam, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is polling at 11 to 13 percent and could emerge as Germany's third-strongest party. "If the AfD becomes the leading opposition party, they will challenge key themes," said Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. In the final stretch, the more outspoken Schulz told voters to reject Merkel's "sleeping-pill politics" and vote against "another four years of stagnation and lethargy".

Source: The Local September 24, 2017 07:18 UTC