Alternative für Deutschland

Merkel suffers humiliating election defeat on home turf

Anti-immigration party AfD gathers strength, pushing chancellor’s Christian Democrats into third place

September 4, 2016 | The Financial Times

by: Stefan Wagstyl in Berlin

Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a humiliating defeat in German regional elections on her home turf on Sunday as voters turned their backs on her liberal refugee policy and gave the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party a political triumph.
A triumphant AfD pushed the chancellor’s centre-right Christian Democrats into third place in the vote in rural Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, with both coming behind the Social Democrats, the region’s dominant political grouping.
“We are writing history in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,” said Leif-Erik Holm, the AfD’s lead candidate. “Perhaps today is the beginning of the end of the chancellorship of Angela Merkel.”
Peter Tauber, CDU general secretary, blamed the “bitter” result on widespread public “discontent and protest” at Ms Merkel’s refugee policy. A CDU official said the party would examine the result and hit back at the AfD’s “simple, stupid slogans”.
The result in the region where the chancellor has her parliamentary seat, mark a new low in 62-year-old Ms Merkel’s fraught struggle to retain public backing for her refugee policy. Protesting voters are abandoning the mainstream parties in droves and turning the AfD into Germany’s most successful rightwing party since the second world war.