Merkel’s refugee policies were a prominent issue in the campaign for Sunday’s election, which came a year to the day after she made a decision to let in migrants who were waiting in Hungary to travel to Germany – setting off the peak of last year’s influx.
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Mr Gabriel said yesterday that “we have to do it too” and that “we have wasted a great deal of time with unnecessary arguments”.
“The more the people who go to vote, the less the percentage won by some parties that, in my view, have no solution for problems and which are built mainly around a protest – often with hate”, she said.
Although the numbers are truly disappointing, that doesn’t seem to bother Ms. Merkel.
Thomas Jaeger, political scientist at Cologne University, told Reuters that Merkel was down but far from out. “Everyone knows that she lost this election”. She has no obvious rival or successor.
An AfD candidate in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern said that he was proud of the party’s result, and predicted the end of the Chancellor’s reign.
Merkel on Monday added that she was aware that her policy on migration caused a decline in her popularity. “This put her in her place”.
The German Chancellor Angel Merkel had to face defeat at the hands of the anti-Immigration and nationalist group called Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The Social Democrats (SDP) – which had topped the vote in the last polls in 2011 – meanwhile were predicted to win around 28 percent at the elections, two weeks before capital Berlin holds its state polls.
Merkel’s support has sunk to a five-year low recently to 45 percent, down from 67 percent a year ago.
The SPD triumphed with 30.5%, with anti-immigration outfit AfD reaching 20.9%, and Merkel’s CDU finishing with 19%, according to projections late on Sunday night.
Merkel’s federal government coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), also suffered a major setback.
Bloomberg describes Merkel’s home state as “an outlier”, with 9 percent unemployment – another reason voters may have supported the AfD.
However, all Germany’s other parties have ruled out forming a governing coalition with the AfD. Sunday’s result may make it tougher to smooth over a dispute with the Christian Social Union, her conservative Union bloc’s Bavarian arm, which criticized her welcoming approach from the start and wants an annual migrant cap.
The AfD, which campaigned hard before elections against Merkel’s so-called open-door policy in dealing with refugees, won 21 percent in their first election in the state.
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The region is sparsely populated, but the vote was symbolically significant because Merkel’s parliamentary constituency is there.
