German chancellor’s own party turns on her after election defeat to anti-immigration party, with ministers admitting ‘she cannot ignore the views of the people’
By Allan Hall
Daily Mail
September 6, 2016
Angela Merkel’s own party has turned on her after suffering an election defeat to an anti-immigration party – with ministers admitting ‘she cannot ignore the views of the people’.
The German chancellor is under renewed pressure to U-turn on her controversial ‘open door’ refugee policy after her conservative CDU party was hammered into third place in an election in her home state on Sunday.
The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party clinched almost 21 per cent in its first bid for seats in the regional parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
With her eyes on national elections next year, AfD co-chief Beatrix von Storch hailed the shocking outcome as ‘the beginning of the end of the Merkel era’, while Bild daily labelled the result another ‘slap across the face’ for the chancellor.
The result also led the daily newspaper Die Welt to comment: ‘Germany now has what has never existed since the end of the war: an extreme-right party’. Her own key allies are now demanding changes, fearful of being decimated at the ballot box in next year’s general election.
The anti-immigrant, anti-EU Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won nearly 22 percent in the vote in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The CDU trailed with 19 percent, its worst ever score in the start where the chancellor has her own constituency.
Poor and poorly populated, elections in the region are usually decided on economic matters. But this one was fought solely on the chancellor’s immigration programme which has seen more than a million refugees settle in the country in a year.
One in two voters said they were casting their ballot because of the migrant issue and nothing else. After her defeat, the AfD lead candidate Leif-Erik Holm called it a ‘proud result for a young party.