Merkel Wins Big in German Election

Surge by Anti-Euro Party Helps Push Out Junior Coalition Partner.

Angela Merkel’s conservatives won a resounding victory in Germany’s elections on Sunday, despite a surge by an anti-euro party that helped push her junior coalition partner out of parliament

Chancellor Merkel appeared set to win a third term as the leader of Europe’s biggest economy, according to official preliminary results. But the 59-year-old former physicist will need a new, left-leaning coalition partner after her Christian Democratic Union fell just short of an absolute majority in the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament.

A so-called grand coalition with the center-left Social Democrats, who finished a distant second in Sunday’s poll, appeared to be Ms. Merkel’s most likely option. Such a pairing would send a strong signal to the rest of Europe that Germany remains fully committed to the euro despite a better-than-expected showing by the upstart Alternative for Germany, which wants to break up the common currency.

Like Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats are strong backers of European integration and have a similar policy to Ms. Merkel’s on the euro-zone crisis, although the party has attacked the chancellor for imposing excessive austerity on southern European countries in return for aid.

The Alternative for Germany’s surprise strength sent a warning to Germany’s political establishment about some voters’ frustration with bailouts of debtor nations such as Greece. The fledgling party, known by its German initials AfD, robbed Ms. Merkel’s coalition allies, the Free Democratic Party, of crucial votes, pushing the pro-business FDP out of the Bundestag for the first time in postwar history.

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