AfD, although only being established three years ago, managed to gather between 12 and 24 percent of the vote in three states that voted over the weekend – Saxony-Anhalt, Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate while Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered losses in two out of the three states, according to the official election results published Monday.
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Surveys show that the Alternative for Deutschland party, or AfD, will win enough votes to secure representation in all three states, bringing the number of local parliaments in which it has representation to eight.
She went on to state that AfD “needs to be here”, because Germany “needs a new alternative – and I think that’s us”.
Gains made in state elections by a strongly anti-immigration party are sending shockwaves through German society.
Both Kretschmann and Rhineland-Palatinate governor Malu Dreyer have at times sounded more enthusiastic about Merkel’s refugee policy than their conservative challengers.
“These results are a serious rebuke for Merkel and the most pronounced protest vote we’ve seen so far”, said Holger Schmieding, an analyst at Berenberg Bank.
The result is a setback for Merkel just as she is trying to use her status as Europe’s most powerful leader to seal a European Union deal with Turkey to stem the tide of migrants.
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.
German television channel ZDF showed support for the Christian Democrats within their traditional stronghold of Baden Wuerttemberg dipping to 29 percent by 10 percentage points, and Alternative for Germany viewed 11 percent support, Agence-France Presse reported. According to a survey conducted in February, 81 percent of Germans feel the refugee crisis is “out of control” under the chancellor’s leadership, and the majority want more restrictive measures for asylum seekers.
For most of the last decade, Merkel enjoyed stellar popularity ratings as she pushed middle-ground policies which helped her party capture voters from the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).
In an editorial mass-selling daily Bild, said Merkel had experienced a “crushing defeat on this super torturous election Sunday” but would likely stick to her political course and said the price for this would be a deeply divided conservative group.
Frauke Petry, who has led the AfD, was triumphant after the vote.
The anti-migrant AfD achieved gains in all three states, exit polls indicate.
“We have a clear position on refugee policies and we stand by that”, said SPD leader Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel.
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It now has its sights set on entering the national parliament in elections expected late next year.
