Merkel humiliated in third place finish to AfD in state elections!
MECKLENBURG-VORPOMMERN, Germany (PNN) - September 5, 2016 - 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 center-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.”
The AfD, formed only in 2013, took 20.8% of the vote for the state legislature in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It took support from other Parties and brought out non-voters, helping to raise the turnout from 51.5% to 61%.
The CDU, meanwhile, fell from 23% in 2011 to 19%, their worst result yet in the state.
The AfD is now represented in nine of Germany’s 16 regions and is developing momentum for future regional polls, including in Berlin later this month, and for Bundestag elections in autumn 2017. Scoring around 12% in national opinion polls, it is widely expected to be Germany’s first right wing Party to enter the national parliament since 1945.
Peter Tauber, CDU general secretary, blamed the “bitter” result on widespread public “discontent and protest” at Merkel’s refugee policy. A CDU official said the Party would examine the result and hit back at the AfD’s “simple, stupid slogans”.
To find “simple stupid slogans” one need look no further than Merkel’s open arms welcome of refugees accompanied by her often-repeated phrase, “We can do this”.
Simple, stupid slogans, indeed.
