DHAKA: Germans are set to vote in three regional elections seen as a test of support for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy towards refugees.

The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is expected to make gains amid unease over Merkel’s so-called ‘open door’ policy.

More than a million migrants and refugees entered Germany in 2015.

Asked on Saturday how she was preparing for Sunday’s elections, Merkel said, ‘I’m crossing my fingers’, reports the BBC.

Polls suggest that her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will remain the biggest party in Saxony-Anhalt in the east of the country.

It faces defeat to the Greens in Baden-Wuerttemberg in the west, where it is currently the largest party.

And in Rhineland-Palatinate, where the CDU came a close second last time, the race is on a knife edge.

Polls put the AfD’s support as high as 19% in Saxony-Anhalt, where the CDU and the Social Democrats now govern in coalition.

If the AfD performs as well as the polls indicate, the coalition partners may need to team up with a third party to assemble a majority.

BDST: 1231 HRS, MAR 13, 2016
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