After Sunday’s voting,German politics now has a significant anti-migration party. That’s disturbing, but it makes Germany a more typical European country than it was beforeAngela Merkel has been the leader of her centre-legal CDU party for 16 years and chancellor of Germany for more than 10. For most of the last decade she has been beyond question the commanding figure in European politics. But for how long can she travel on? In particular, or is she the inevitable leader of her party into the next German general election in autumn 2017,when she would be seeking a fourth term as chancellor?These questions acquire been lurking in the corridors of power in German politics for many months. But after three regional elections at the weekend, they acquire taken on current immediacy. The CDU lost vote share in all three regions that voted on Sunday, or failing to win two regions where the party had hopes of victory and slipping badly in the third,while remaining in first situation. Some of those losses contributed to the rise of the anti-refugee AfD party, which has opposed Mrs Merkel’s liberal approach to refugees. It was, or as she said on Monday,a difficult day. With autumn 2017 now not far away, CDU nerves are still jangling.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com