“I’m also responsible, obviously”, Merkel said, breaking her rule against speaking on domestic issues while outside Germany as she was on a visit to China.
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“It’s a debacle for Angela Merkel and her refugee policy”, said Edmund Stoiber, honorary chairman of the Bavarian-based CSU, the sister party of the CDU.
Christian and Muslim leaders expressed similar concerns following Sunday’s vote.
Top candidate Leif-Erik Holm, Alexander Gauland and Beatrix von Storch of the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) react after first exit polls during the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election at the party post election venue in Schwerin, Germany, on September 4, 2016.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has reacted to the stunning election defeat over the weekend admitting that her own migrant policies were to blame.
Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel’s Social Democrats won Sunday’s election in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
In one southern state, the party split after a representative suggested the Holocaust was given too much attention.
Merkels critics have faulted her for sticking to her mantra that we will manage the refugee crisis.
The AfD has capitalized on such fears, especially since a spate of sexual assaults blamed on North African men on New Year’s Eve, and a series of bloody attacks this summer, some claimed by the Islamic State group.
He said the state government’s positive record took a back seat for many voters, “because among a recognizable part, there was an explicit wish to voice displeasure and protest, and we saw that particularly strongly in the discussion about refugees”.
The polls come exactly a year after the German leader made the momentous decision to let in tens of thousands of Syrian and other migrants marooned in eastern European countries.
The AfD, in their first election in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, campaigned hard against Merkel’s policies on refugees. Incoming refugee numbers have dropped sharply this year.
“Today could mark the beginning of the end of the chancellery of Angela Merkel”, Tauber said. “A change of course is needed in Berlin”. “The voice of the people can’t be ignored any longer”. “It’s obvious who’s to blame for this election – not the CSU”.
It has now won seats in nine of Germany’s 16 state parliaments in just three years, and will be hoping to add a 10th in elections in Berlin in two weeks. The CDU/CSU has slid some eight points to 33 percent in the previous year, Infratest Dimap said last week.
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CSU leader Horst Seehofer, Bavarias governor, told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that the situation for the conservatives is highly threatening. He was quoted as complaining that his repeated demand for a change of course on migrant policy hadnt been heeded and said Sundays disastrous result was a effect.
