Germans give thumbs down to Merkel migrant policy

Election losses for Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats in three German state elections will not change policies in the refugee crisis, a government spokesman said on Monday.
Merkel acknowledged Monday that the refugee issue dominated three state elections and that many voters felt there is no satisfactory solution yet.

The three-year-old Alternative for Germany, or AfD - which has campaigned against Merkel's open-borders approach - easily entered all three legislatures, according to projections for ARD television based on exit polls and early counting. Merkel's conservatives trailed centre-left rivals in two states they hoped to win. While Sunday's results will likely generate new tensions, Merkel herself should be 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. "I am fully convinced that we need a European solution, and that this solution needs time".


Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at Berlin's Free University, said that Merkel's "refugee policy was supported by the majority of voters", even if they ended up voting for other parties.
The main reason for the poor CDU showing "is the refugee policy".
"The answer to the population after such an election result can not be that everything continues as it was", he added.

"It's an existential question", Horst Seehofer said after a meeting of the party's board in Munich. She added that differences between the CDU and Seehofer's CSU are "always hard to bear" for conservative voters.
Merkel has criticized their decision, but Bavarian daily Nuernberger Nachrichten noted that "she is benefiting more than anyone from the border closures that she is criticizing".
They indicate the Christian Democrats lost support in Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland Palatinate, but remain the largest party in Saxony-Anhalt.
"Yesterday was a hard day for the CDU", she said after a party meeting to assess the damage from the polls.

Merkel insisted past year that "we will manage" the challenge of integrating migrants.
After Sunday's results, "a discussion will start in the CDU as to whether it's worth agitating against Merkel on refugee policy - and it won't happen, because they know they will lose", Neugebauer said. While her government has moved to tighten asylum rules, she 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.

The AfD gained access to state parliament for the the first time with double-digit percentage in the states of Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Saxony-Anhalt during Sunday's polls, the country's worldwide broadcaster Deutsche Wellereported. But she still looks set to run for a fourth successive term as chancellor, with no real challenger for the right to lead her party into next year's federal election.

The rise of the AfD in Germany mirrors growing support for populist politicians such as National Front leader Marine Le Pen in France and Trump, who has called for banning Muslims from emigrating to the U.S. Like Trump, Petry regularly gives the media that hang on her every word a tongue-lashing. There were "good results for a protest party with no substantial competence, the AfD - that is very annoying".