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.
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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.
Beatrix von Storch from the AfD said her party’s recent successes in the polls prove there is a change toward nationalist politics happening in Germany.
With just one year until federal elections, Merkel’s position is tenuous at best and it appears likely that the chancellor may lose her seat due to rabid anti-immigrant sentiment rising across the nation.
The AfD’s rise mirrors success enjoyed by other anti-immigration parties across Europe, with France’s Front National (FN) riding high in the polls and a far-right populist eyeing the presidency in Austria in elections on October 2.
The poor showing of Merkel’s Christian Democratic (CDU) party in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state vote has raised questions about her hopes of winning – or even running – for a fourth term in the 2017 general election. Germany, which took in over one million refugees a year ago, is, per CNN, “the most open country in Europe to asylum seekers”.
Merkel has stood firm on Germany’s position of accepting almost all asylum seekers found to be legitimate refugees.
The Chancellor’s Christian Democrats polled 19%, their worst result in the state since Mrs Merkel took office. Still, New Year’s Eve robberies and sexual assaults blamed largely on foreigners, and two attacks in July carried out by asylum-seekers and claimed by the Islamic State group, have fed tensions.
Although Merkel already adjusted migrant policies over the past year, she can’t make a clean break from her overall approach because “that wouldn’t be credible”, political science professor Klaus Schroeder told N24 television.
The AfD was founded in 2013 as a eurosceptic party advocating a return to the Deutschmark, but it has since shifted to become a mainly anti-immigration and Islamophobic party.
“The AfD is not an option for Germany but an indictment of Germany”, Josef Schuster, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told the German media after the results came in.
“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”.
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The AfD also attracted support from people who ordinarily do not vote – a goal of Trump’s campaign in the November 8 presidential election.
