A three-year-old party, Alternative for Germany (AfD) is clearly threatening to put an end to the Merkel era. The big test case ahead of the 2017 national elections will be next year’s elections in North Rhine Westphalia, a state which has more voters than all eastern German states together, Brzeski noted.
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The AfD was second – a great success for the right-wing party, which was running in provincial elections for the first time.
The CDU fell from 23 percent to 19 percent in their worst result in the state.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed bilateral relations with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan before the start of the G20 summit in China, their first meeting since the failed July 15 coup, a German government spokesman said.
“(The result was) a blow to the chancellor personally and sharpens the question over whether she will lead her party into next year’s general election”, Alastair Newton, co-founder and director of Alavan Business Advisory, said in a note Sunday.
A day after voters in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s political home state delivered what amounted to a strong rejection of her refugee policy, the German leader acknowledged Monday that she was “very dissatisfied” with the result but insisted that she would stick with her chosen course.
With her defense of open borders under attack, Merkel made it clear that she isn’t budging.
Merkel vowed to boost security and improve counterterrorism measures, but she stood firm on Germany’s position of accepting almost all asylum seekers found to be legitimate refugees.
Earlier this year, the CDU had looked like the party most likely to be tasked with forming the next government in the state, according to the Guardian.
New arrivals have slowed drastically this year, policies have been tightened and Mecklenburg is home to few foreigners. If she does, Sunday’s results show she’ll have a challenge on her hands.
In March, the Christian Democrats lost to the Greens in the rich southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where the AfD cut into the CDU’s base.
Frauke Petry, Chairwoman of the Alternative for Germany, on Sunday.
Heath noted that the growing strength of the populist, anti-immigrant AFD mirrored similar parties in France, Poland and Hungary as well the Bexit vote in the United Kingdom and the rise of Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee in the United States.
However, AfD will not take power in the region, as other parties refuse to co-operate with it, the SPD is expected to maintain its coalition with the CDU.
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If the national election were held next week, the AfD would win 12 per cent of the vote, making it the third-largest party in Germany, according to a poll conducted by the Emnid institute for the Bild newspaper and published on Sunday.
