German Chancellor Angela Merkel came under renewed pressure over her liberal refugee policy on Monday after an upstart anti-migrant populist party handed her party a humiliating defeat in her home state.
Advertisement
“(The result was) a blow to the chancellor personally and sharpens the question over whether she will lead her party into next year’s general election”, Alastair Newton, co-founder and director of Alavan Business Advisory, said in a note Sunday.
Merkel’s refugee policies were a prominent issue in the campaign for Sunday’s election, which came a year to the day after she chose to let in migrants from Hungary – setting off the peak of last year’s influx.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, a fellow Christian Democrat, rejected as “preposterous” criticism from some in the CDU’s Christian Social Union (CSU) sister party that Merkel’s refugee policy was responsible for the rise of the AfD party.
Turkey accepts many Christian Armenians were killed but contests assertions that up to 1.5 million died, and denies the killings were orchestrated.
Sunday’s result could make it more hard for Merkel to bury a festering dispute with the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian arm of her conservative bloc, which has long criticized her decision to open the borders and advocated an annual cap on migrants.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel struck an upbeat tone after meeting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the G20 summit, and stated her expectations for progress to take place. While polls this year have shown her popularity slipping from stellar to merely solid, there is no obvious conservative alternative and her bloc is ahead nationally. It is now the only place in Germany where the far-right National Democratic Party is represented in the state legislature, though polls suggest it is likely to lose its seats with some supporters switching to AfD.
Although not an imminent danger to Merkel, who signalled Friday that she’ll decide by December whether to run again for the chancellorship, the result will renew pressure within her party as members bristle at the resistance to her stance on migration.
State Premier Erwin Sellering, a Social Democrat, urged voters to reject the AfD. In the last state election five years ago, they polled 35.6 and 23 percent respectively. The left-leaning Greens were hovering around the 5 percent mark.
AfD is now represented in nine of Germany’s 16 state legislatures and hopes to enter the national Parliament next year. In the eastern region of Saxony-Anhalt, Alternative for Germany won 24.2 per cent, its best state result yet.
Advertisement
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. Other parties won’t deal with it.
