Far Right surge in German election
ANGELA Merkel suffered a major blow last night as the far Right surged into the German parliament in a display of strength not seen since the Nazi era.
The German Chancellor secured a lacklustre election victory, but she was punished by conservative voters for throwing open the country’s border to more than a million refugees.
As support for her Christian Democrats plunged, the far- Right nationalists of Alternative für Deutschland last night looked to have secured more than 90 of the 630 seats in the Bundestag.
All mainstream parties have already ruled out working with the Islamophobic party, whose candidates have called for Germany to stop apologising for its role in the Second World War.
ANGELA Merkel was a seriously weakened figure last night after millions deserted her for the far Right in German elections.
The Chancellor was on track to win only 32.6 per cent of the vote, forcing her into an unstable coalition.
Her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party haemorrhaged support to the nationalist Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) party which notched up 13.5 per cent, according to exit polls.
The anti-immigration party had waged a virulent campaign against Mrs Merkel’s decision to let in 1million refugees, some of whom have been implicated in rapes and terror attacks.
And their success is the first time in 60 years that the far Right has garnered enough votes to secure such a show of strength in the Bundestag. The Greens said the shock result meant that the Nazis were in parliament again.
One report said that in parts of the former East Germany, the AfD had polled 45 per cent of the vote.
The AfD’s strong showing could see them taking as many as 90 seats.
Jewish groups expressed concern about the far-Right surge, and last night protesters were gathering outside the AfD headquarters in Berlin.
Mrs Merkel said she had hoped for a ‘better result’ and pledged to listen to the ‘concerns and anxieties’ of AfD voters in order to win them back.
The result is also a blow for Theresa May, who had been banking on an emboldened Mrs Merkel helping her reach a good deal on Brexit.
Now it appears Mrs Merkel could be bogged down in coalition talks for weeks or even months – meaning she will have little time to bolster her British counterpart.
A worst-case scenario is that Mrs Merkel may now have to take an even harder line against the UK.
The German election is just the latest shock result to stun political observers, following last year’s vote for Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and Mrs May’s general election disaster in June.
Beatrix von Storch, one of the AfD’s leaders, told the BBC the result was ‘a huge success ... it will change the political system in Germany, and it will give back a voice to the opposition’. She added: ‘We will start debates on migration, we will start debates on Islam, we will start debates on ever closer [European] union.’
Among those welcoming the AfD’s strong showing was Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front who came second in France’s presidential election earlier this year.
Mrs Merkel saw her CDU/CSU alliance slump to its lowest share of the vote since 1949, the first time national elections were held in post-war Germany. At the last federal elections in 2013, her party won more than 40 per cent of the vote.
Her main social democrat SPD rivals also received their worst result since the 1940s – just 20 per cent – after nearly half of voters repudiated the two parties that have dominated Germany since the Second World War. The liberal FDP scored 10.5 per, and the Greens 9.5 per cent.
Mrs Merkel, 63, has said she will not work with the AfD, meaning she is now likely to have to cobble together a tricky three-way coalition with the FDP and the Greens. Despite losing support, she is only the third post-war chancellor to win four national elections.