While Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) garnered its worst ever score in elections to the parliament in state capital Schwerin, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) maintained top place with over 30 percent.
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New arrivals have slowed drastically this year, policies have been tightened and Mecklenburg is home to few foreigners.
Compared to other parts of Germany, the northeastern state hosts just a small proportion of refugees under a quota system based on states’ income and population – having taken in 25,000 asylum seekers a year ago.
Merkel’s welcome for refugees a year ago was a prominent issue in Sunday’s vote, in which the Alternative for Germany party finished second.
“This is a result to make us proud”, Leif-Erik Holm, the AfD’s candidate for state premier, said on ARD.
“So the quarrels between the CDU and CSU will continue, and the Social Democrats will turn even more strongly against the Union to have a chance in the national election campaign”. “People just don’t understand how policy is made in Germany”, he added, demanding that Merkel shift her focus to domestic policy. 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.
Merkel said she was “deeply dissatisfied with the outcome of the election”, conceding that campaigning had been dominated by the influx of one million asylum seekers to Germany a year ago.
Merkel had formerly pledged not to put quotas on the number of refugees entering her county.
The German Federal elections are to be held next year, and there are rumours that Ms. Merkel may not stand again for a fourth term.
However, all Germany’s other parties have ruled out forming a governing coalition with the AfD.
The AfD is also making gains nationwide, a new poll showed on Sunday.
The Local said that Knobloch further warned that the AfD, along with other far-right parties, constituted a threat to Germany’s democratic foundations.
AfD, founded in 2013, won 24 percent of the vote in Sachen Anhalt region in March, and is now represented in nine of Germany’s 16 regions.
Theres no realistic prospect at present of AfD going into government.
Frauke Petry, Chairwoman of the Alternative for Germany, on Sunday.
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“Apparently it is not clear to many voters, or they accept this, that AfD doesn’t distance itself clearly from the far-right spectrum either in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania or nationally”.
