Angela
Merkel stands by refugee policy despite AfD gains
‘I
am very unhappy with the result,’ says chancellor after defeat in
regional election.
By MATTHEW
KARNITSCHNIG 9/5/16, 4:40 PM CET
BERLIN — German
Chancellor Angela Merkel took personal responsibility on Monday for
her party’s withering defeat in regional elections in her home
state, acknowledging that her stance on refugees drove disaffected
voters into the arms of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD)
even as she defended that policy.
Merkel’s Christian
Democrats finished third in Sunday’s poll in the northeastern state
of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, falling behind the far-right AfD for the
first time in one of the party’s worst showings since World War II.
“I am very unhappy
with the result,” Merkel said from China, where she attended the
G20 meetings over the weekend. “Of course this is connected to the
refugee policies. I am the head of the party and chancellor …
naturally I am also responsible.”
Nonetheless, Merkel
continued to defend her decision to let more than 1 million refugees
into the country last year, insisting that voters would come around
if her government can make progress in integrating those granted
asylum.
“We have to
recognize that the population doesn’t have enough confidence in our
ability to resolve these issues even though we’ve already achieved
a lot” — Angela Merkel
“We have to
recognize that the population doesn’t have enough confidence in our
ability to resolve these issues even though we’ve already achieved
a lot,” Merkel said, adding that her priority would now be to “win
back trust.”
Even as she took
responsibility for the loss, Merkel struck a defiant note, making
clear she had no intention of disavowing her refugee policy.
“I still consider
the decision as it was made to be the right one and now we need to
continue to work on it,” she said.
What worries Merkel
loyalists is that the stinging defeat came despite a steep reduction
in the numbers of refugees arriving in Germany and the EU’s
agreement with Turkey under which Ankara has pledged to keep migrants
from crossing to Greece.
What’s more,
Merkel’s government has passed a series of measures in recent
months aimed at compelling the newcomers to learn German and take
other steps towards integration.
In
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a sparsely populated rural region where
right-wing parties have traditionally performed well, government
promises to integrate the mostly Muslim foreigners appeared to have
missed the point, however. Even though the state has few Muslims and
has taken in only a small number of refugees, many locals —
including 96 percent of AfD voters — worry about what they see as
the growing influence of Islam, according to exit polls.
The AfD’s
anti-migrant, anti-Islam message resonated with voters who, in the
words of senior party official Alexander Gauland, are concerned that
“they are gradually losing their homeland.”
New voters head
Right
The core of the
AfD’s support came from voters who didn’t cast a ballot in the
last election. The party, which finished with 21 percent, or 180,000
votes total, drew 55,000 such voters.
Most AfD voters were
motivated by a desire to voice their frustration with the ruling
parties in Berlin, exit polls showed. Even with the party’s surge,
the Social Democrat-led coalition with Merkel’s center-right
conservatives won enough votes to form a new government, an outcome
most political observers believe is likely.
Though Merkel’s
Christian Democrats were hit hard by the AfD, all of the established
parties suffered losses. The AfD attracted about 22,000 voters from
the ranks of the CDU, according to an exit poll commissioned by
German public broadcaster ARD. It also stole about 15,000 votes each
from the Left party and Social Democrats (SPD).
The Left finished
with just over 13 percent, more than five percentage points below its
result in the last election in 2011. The region has long been a
stronghold for the post-Communists.
“We need to think
hard about this and take the consequences,” party leader Bernd
Riexinger said.
The ultra far-right
National Democratic Party (NPD) lost half of its support or about
20,000 voters to the AfD. The neo-Nazi party missed the 5 percent
threshold necessary to secure seats in the legislature for the first
time since 2006.
The Greens, who in
the last election benefited from voter dismay over the Fukushima
nuclear disaster, also fell short of the 5 percent threshold, winning
just 4.8 percent.
Despite
across-the-board losses for the established forces, the broader
implications of the election are likely limited.
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
is an outlier in terms of its small size, location and demographics.
Many young people have left the state since reunification in search
of better economic opportunities elsewhere in Germany. Its population
is expected to drop by 14 percent by 2020 from the 1.7 million who
lived there in 2002, according to government forecasts.
By comparison, about
18 million people live in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s biggest
state, and more than 12 million live in Bavaria. Both of those states
are growing.
The exodus and
economic stagnation in many areas of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
political analysts say, has skewed the state’s political landscape
towards the extremes.
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