The results appear to be a clear message from the people against Merkel’s refugee policies, with nationalist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) reaching double-digit percentages in each of the three states. This is after seven months of the public’s different views regarding the chancellor’s open country policy.
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She alarmed many European Union leaders last week by foisting the plan on them and demanding their support. He expected that fragmentation of Germany’s political scene to continue, leading to more centrist coalitions, voter boredom and a rise in support for more extremist parties.
The AfD argues that Germans have been denied a choice over a policy that could define their country for generations, with Ms Merkel ruling in a “grand coalition” that includes her party’s Socialist rivals. It had hoped to beat left-leaning Green governor Winfried Kretschmann in Baden-Wuerttemberg, a traditional stronghold that the CDU ran for decades until 2011.
Germany took in 1.1 million migrants fleeing the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere last year and is expecting hundreds of thousands more to arrive this year.
Center-left incumbents Kretschmann and Dreyer often sounded more enthusiastic about Merkel’s refugee policy than their conservative challengers. Supporters gathered at the AfD’s election-night celebration in Berlin chanted “Merkel must go!” after the results started to come in.
“Merkel will now have to live with the accusation that she has allowed the AfD to establish itself to the right of the CDU”.
“It is good that there is approval from society as a whole but…” She said: “I am firmly convinced, and that wasn’t questioned today, that we need a European solution and that this solution needs time”.
“I have never spoken out against national measures”.
Mario Ohoven, president of the BVMW Mittelstand association, said the AfD’s success should trigger government policy changes, adding that if Merkel stuck to her current refugee stance, the right-wing populist movement would keep growing.
Party co-leader Joerg Meuthen, however, distanced the AfD from the National Front, calling Marine Le Pen’s group “a party that has deeply nationalist and socialist ideas, which is alien to our party”.
Still, she has criticised the unilateral border closures, and said Monday “you can see every day from the photos from Greece that the solution isn’t so sustainable yet”.
Saxony-Anhalt saw the biggest gains for the three year old party, which won 24 per cent of votes.
And what a reassurance, to know that Germans do not agree with what’s being done to them and are no longer willing to be scared of being called “racist”, simply for believing in borders, and opposing rape culture, and the de-Germanization of Germany.
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Observers regard the vote for the AfD as an indication of rising anti-migrant frustrations across the country – a phenomenon shared by other European countries and the United States. And a new anti-immigration party, called the AfD, did incredibly well, especially for a party that didn’t exist just a few years ago.
