Merkel’s CDU managed only 19 percent, its worst ever result in the northeastern state.
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“This is what we call probably the beginning of the end of Angela Merkel’s chancellorship”, Ms von Storch added.
Germany will take on the “humanitarian responsibility” for refugees and asylum seekers but those who do not have the right to stay in the country must leave, Chancellor Angela Merkel has said. The center-left Social Democrats formed a “grand coalition” with Merkel’s center-right party in 2013.
In the sprawling farming and coastal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania – Germany’s poorest and least populous – the issue of refugees and integration has also become the deciding factor for one in three voters.
After the latest blow to Angela Merkel this weekend, with her party coming in third place to an anti-immigrant party in a state election, analysts are questioning both how much longer the German chancellor’s refugee policy can stay intact and how long she can stay in power.
“In the capital, the strength of the AfD could force the CDU out of the grand coalition with the SPD”, Carsten Nickel, deputy director of research at risk consultancy Teneo Intelligence, said in a note Sunday.
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 past year.
The voting on Sunday was the first of five regional ballots to be held before the general election in Germany in 2017.
But New Year’s Eve robberies and sexual assaults in Germany blamed largely on foreigners, as well as two attacks in July carried out by asylum-seekers and claimed by the Isil group, have fed tensions. CSU leader Horst Seehofer complained Monday his “repeated demand for a change of course” wasn’t heeded and sought a “clarification” of policies by October.
Meanwhile, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, the leader of Social Democratic Party (SPD), also pointed to his party’s increasing distance from Merkel accusing the chancellor and her party of being too slow to respond to the refugee crisis.
Sunday’s election took place a year after Merkel opened the door to migrants from Hungary. The voters made a clear statement against Merkel’s disastrous immigration policies.
Bloomberg describes Merkel’s home state as “an outlier”, with 9 percent unemployment – another reason voters may have supported the AfD.
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Petry, whose party has no prospect of going into government in the foreseeable future, complained that its rivals “still think they can label AfD as an undemocratic party”.
