Merkel remained defiant despite widespread anger over her immigration policies, saying the decision to admit over 1 million refugees into Germany in the past year was “the right thing to do”.
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The Social Democrats, who have governed the state since 1998, took 30.2 percent for the most votes, giving them the first shot at forming the next state government.
Speaking at a news conference at the close of the G20 summit in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, Merkel said that there was 10 times as much direct investment in the European Union as in Africa.
Gabriel accused Merkel’s conservatives of being too slow to respond to the migrant crisis, which resulted in the success of right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the regional election held in this province on Sunday.
Mrs Merkel has defended her policies but said she needs to “win back trust”. She stressed that “I am deeply dissatisfied with the outcome of the election”, conceding that it had been dominated by the influx of 1 million asylum seekers a year ago and the question of how to integrate them in society.
Germany’s worldwide broadcaster, Deutsche Welle (DW), has published a special in-depth report about the Alternative for Germany, or AfD.
Merkel, however, remains convinced that this policy was “right from the start”.
In a stinging defeat for Merkel in her home district one year ahead of federal elections, the upstart Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won 21.4 percent of the vote in their first election in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern by campaigning hard against the chancellor’s policies on refugees.
She added that “the issue of integration will play a huge role in that, and the question of the repatriation of refugees who have no residence permit here”.
Sunday’s election in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was seen as symbolically important as it was in Merkel’s home constituency.
The result means that, despite losses for both governing parties, the SPD and the CDU will be able to form a coalition for another five-year term. He was quoted as complaining that his “repeated demand for a change of course” on migrant policy hadn’t been heeded and said Sunday’s “disastrous” result was a effect.
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Even if stung by defeat, Merkel has no obvious successor waiting in the wings and her CDU-led bloc still leads in all national polls. But the loss of Merkel’s center-right party was seen as a direct response of Germans’ concern about large influx of Syrian and other refugees the country has accepted in the a year ago. “Trying to cut them out completely is the wrong way forward”.
