New York Times: Germans vote on whether to give Merkel a 4th term

Published Sept. 24, 2017. Updated Sept. 24 at 6:00 pm

German Chancellor and CDU party leader Angela Merkel gets her ballot at a polling station on Sept. 24, in Berlin during general elections. Germans voted in a general election 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.

Photo by AFP

BERLIN — Warned about the dangers of complacency in parlous times by their president, Germans voted on Sunday in an election that is expected to return Angela Merkel to power for a fourth term as chancellor but also to bring a far-right party into Parliament for the first time in more than 60 years.

German voters were urged to take their civic responsibilities to heart and not sit out the vote in the face of opinion polls showing Ms. Merkel and her center-right Christian Democrats and their Bavarian allies, the Christian Socialists, with a double-digit lead over the center-left Social Democrats.