Merkel wins but can’t escape voter fury
The German nation grudgingly handed Angela Merkel a fourth term as chancellor in yesterday’s election but punished her for the refugee influx with a dramatic protest vote that ushered far-right nationalists into parliament for the first time in more than half a century.
Her conservatives remained the largest party with 32.9 per cent, according to projections based on initial results, but that was down more than eight points from 2013 in the party’s worst result since the postwar republic was founded in 1949.
Support for the far-right Alternative for Germany Party (AfD), which waged a fiercely anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim campaign, almost trebled to 13.3 per cent, reflecting lingering fury among millions of Germans over her decision to allow in more than a million refugees fleeing Syria and other conflict zones in the Middle East and Africa since 2015.
“We had expected a better result, of course, but we mustn’t forget that we’ve had an exceptionally challenging parliamentary term,” said Mrs Merkel, 63, who was frequently heckled and even pelted with tomatoes at campaign rallies.
“We face a big new challenge with the entry of the AfD into parliament, we want to regain the AfD’s voters by solving their problems, by listening to their concerns and fears and above all through good government,” she told supporters in Berlin.
But the chancellor, in power since 2005 and called the nation’s “Mutti” or “Mummy” by her supporters, will find governing much harder during what is expected to be her final term.
She is weaker now because her only option to form a government appears to be a potentially unstable three-way coalition with the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats, who are likely to wrest policy concessions in exchange for their support. After a dismal performance, the centre-left Social Democrats, with whom she has governed in a “grand coalition” for the past four years, have already ruled out joining another coalition.
“The AFD’s gains don’t surprise me that much after Brexit and the US election,” said Mohammed Ossman, 27, a refugee from Damascus now living in Berlin.
“This is a backlash, a fury that people are having.
“It’s a reaction to a lot of Germans feeling that their identity is under threat from the refugee influx.”
After the upheaval caused by the refugee crisis, which has cost the country billions of euros, stoked terrorism fears and overwhelmed some authorities, Mrs Merkel’s re-election may come as a surprise to outsiders. But the majority of Germans still see her as a safe pair of hands who has presided over a halving of the unemployment rate and strong economic growth while much of the rest of Europe has been mired in crisis for almost a decade.
“Merkel’s motives may not always have been clear, but people have faith in her as a crisis manager focused on protecting the interests of the majority,” said Gero Neugebauer, a political analyst at Berlin’s Free University.
But the rise of the AfD alarmed the country’s political establishment. Foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel said it saddened him that after the election there would once again be “real Nazis standing at the lectern of the Reichstag [the parliament chamber]”.