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International News Title: German voters' damning verdict on open-door migration: Angela Merkel is punished in crucial state elections as far-Right party wins big vote with call to stop flow of refugees German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU party was humiliated in key regional elections on Sunday as voters delivered their verdict at the ballot box about her open-door refugee policies. Exit poll results in three out of 16 German states foretell a wipeout in next year's general election as the hard-right capitalized on public disquiet and altered the political landscape forever. Baden-Wuerttemberg - solidly middle class and home to blue chip companies like Porsche and Daimler - was won by the Green Party after Merkel's CDU lost nearly 11 percent support since the last vote there in 2011. And the Alternative for Germany - AfD anti-immigrant party - garnered 12.5 percent of the votes, propelling a party that her supporters call 'Nazis in pinstripes' into the local parliament. Leader Frauke Petry said: 'We are seeing above all in these elections that voters are turning away in large numbers from the big established parties and voting for our party. 'They expect us finally to be the opposition that there hasn't been in the German parliament and some state parliaments.' 'The people who voted for us voted against this refugee policy,' added AfD deputy chairman Alexander Gauland. 'We have a very clear position on the refugee issue: we do not want to take in any refugees,' he declared. Their success was even more prominent in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt where it scored a massive 23 percent. The elections in Baden-Wuerttemberg - and in the states of Rheinland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt - were billed as a referendum on Merkel's decision to open the country's doors to people fleeing war. The results pile even more pressure on the embattled chancellor to change course and put a cap on refugees arriving in the country - something she had steadfastly refused to do despite spiralling violence and a surge in support for extremists. The numbers on the so-called 'Super Sunday' vote crunched on the wrong side of disastrous for her. In Rhineland-Palatinate the CDU came in second behind the centre-left SPD with 32.5 percent and the AfD scoring double-digits again with 11 percent. In Saxony-Anhalt, an eastern state which has seen some of the worst violence projected towards the 1.2 million refugees who arrived in the country last year, the AfD came in as the third strongest party. Merkel's CDU was the biggest winner with 32 percent, but this was down nearly seven percent on the last election and a projected alliance between the SPD and the Die Linke - the Left - party means it will be deprived of power. Die Linke scored 21 percent of the vote. The SPD - Mrs. Merkel's partners in power on the national stage and supporters opf her refugee policy - lost nearly 10 percent in the state over their last showing in 2011. 'These elections are very important as they will serve as a litmus test for the government's disputed policy' on refugees, said Düsseldorf University political scientist Jens Walther. 'These are numbers that really hit us,' said Guido Wolf, the CDU's top candidate in Baden-Wüerttemberg. 'This is the most difficult election campaign the party has had to run.' Asked if Merkel should now overhaul her refugee policy, the CDU's general secretary Peter Tauber said: 'I don't see that need.' Likewise, Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said the grand left-right coalition government would stand firm on its immigration stance. 'We have a clear position on refugee policies and we stand by that,' said the SPD leader. Mrs. Merkel's refusal to put a cap on refugee arrivals - instead trying to broker a common European strategy on dealing with them - has seen her popularity plunge in recent weeks. The AfD, a party whose chairwoman Frauke Petry recently recommended German border guards open fire on illegal refugees, has become the main vehicle of protest against her. The AfD currently has seats in five regional parliaments as well as having seats in the EU parliament. Large inroads on sundayx will only reinforce fears that Germany is shifting to the right after decades of middle-of-the-road concensus politics following the collapse of Nazism in 1945. Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) warned voters; 'We have a lot to lose if we deal carelessly with social stability and democracy'. They are the first major elections held in Germany since the start of the European migration crisis, and Ms Merkel's humanitarian stance on refugees has been both praised and condemned. Some 12.7million are headed to the polls in three very diverse states; Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate in the southwest are both considered prosperous regions, while Saxony-Anhalt in the ex-communist east is relatively poor. Earlier polls suggested both the CDU and Ms Merkel's partners in the national government, the centre-left Social Democrats will lose support, while the big winners are set to be the right-wing AfD. They predicted the three-year-old AfD, which has campaigned against Ms Merkel's migrant policy, would easily enter all three state legislatures, winning as much as 19 per cent of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt, a number it exceeded. Saxony-Anhalt is the only one out of the three states voting on Super Sunday where Ms Merkel's CDU is in power, and the meteoric rise in support for AfD should worry the Chancellor. Just six months ago, the anti-immigration party led by 40-year-old Ms Petry, had just five per cent support in Saxony-Anhalt. This week, Ms Merkel dismissed the support for AfD as temporary, claiming that the support for the populist right-wingers will diminish once the government has the refugee situation under control. However, right-wing populism has won new support across the EU in the wake of the refugee crisis, with parties with similar agendas to AfD rising in the polls. In Sweden, which also has taken in huge numbers of refugees and migrants, the far right Sweden Democrats went from a six per cent support in 2010 general election to steadily polling at 20 per cent support for the past year. Germany registered nearly 1.1 million people as asylum-seekers last year as Ms Merkel insisted 'we will manage' the challenge, a stance which - while supported by many voters - drove others into AfD's arms. 'What she did was issue a political invitation to a great many people in the world to set off for Europe, with catastrophic consequences for the structure of a Europe of freedom,' AfD's Ms Petry recently told foreign reporters. Ms Petry, whose party already has lawmakers in five German state parliaments and at the European Parliament, argues that 'having taken more than 1 million asylum seekers and awaiting many more, awaiting families as well, is going to cause huge problems in Germany.' While the German government has moved to tighten asylum rules, Ms Merkel still insists on a pan-European solution to the migrant crisis, ignoring demands from some conservative allies for a national cap on the number of refugees. For 'all those who want a constructive solution, who want to move things ahead, AfD is completely the wrong party,' the chancellor says. Ms Petry has seen the support for her party increase in recent months as public opinion has changed on Germany's migration policy. AfD was formed in 2013 and was initially profiling itself as a party for Eurosceptics, but the party has since split into two factions, with one more vocal on right-wing politics. Ms Petry, a mother-of-four, has been a Speaker for the party since its birth, but was elected 'principal Speaker' - de facto party leader - in June last year. Her opponent, Bernd Lucke, said Ms Petry and the election of her as leader, was turning AfD into 'a Pegida party'. In an interview last month, Ms Petry controversially suggested refugees who try to cross the German border illegally should be shot by police. Ms Merkel's CDU ran Baden-Wuerttemberg for decades until 2011, when it finished first but lost power to a Green-led coalition. This time, polls suggest it will be beaten to first place by the left-leaning Greens, who are benefiting from the popularity of the state governor, Winfried Kretschmann. Many prefer Kretschmann, who has a more conservative image than many Greens, to little-known CDU challenger Guido Wolf. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the CDU's Julia Kloeckner hopes to end the Social Democrats' 25 years in charge, but the parties are now neck and neck. Both Kretschmann and Rhineland-Palatinate governor Malu Dreyer have at times sounded more enthusiastic about Ms Merkel's refugee policy than their conservative challengers. Wolf and Kloeckner last month called for Germany to impose daily refugee quotas — something Ms Merkel opposes but which neighboring Austria has since put in place. The gambit may have backfired, giving the impression of disunity in the CDU. Germany's next national election is due in late 2017. While a poor result on Sunday will likely generate new tensions, Ms Merkel's position appears secure: she has put many state-level setbacks behind her in the past, and there's no long-term successor or figurehead for any rebellion in sight. Strong performances would boost AfD's hopes of entering the national parliament next year, but it remains to be seen how it will perform in the long term. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: cranky (#0)
Good ol' Vladmir Putin smashed Ms. Merkel, once again.
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