German voters punish Merkel's conservatives in state votes
Source: Reuters
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives lost in two out of three state elections on Sunday as Germans punished her accommodative refugee policy with a big vote for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), exit polls showed.
The losses in both Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland Palatinate represented a worst-case scenario for Merkel, who has staked her legacy on her decision last year to open Germany's doors to over 1 million migrants - a move voters snubbed.
The backlash was also visible in Saxony-Anhalt in former East Germany, where Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) remained the largest party but saw the AfD grab 21.5 percent of the vote as it burst into all three regional parliaments.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-idUSKCN0WE0ZQ
This was a surprise to nobody. The conservative CDU doesn't give a shit about refugees. They care about cheap labor for generations to come. That's why they allowed so many refugees into Germany. Now the German people are making them pay at the polls.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)It's a bad day for the CDU, that's for sure.
For those who can read it:
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/liveblog-14122219.html#/elections
Euphoria
(448 posts)
napi21
(45,806 posts)policies. GREAT! It took a LONG TIME, but it seems like it has finally ticked off enough people EVERYWHERE to kick 'em out! The thing I find amusing is the conservatives here in the States still don't seem to get it that the majority of their own constituents hate what they've been pushing.
Merkel is being punished for her liberal migrant policies, not conservative economic policies.
The AfD, the party who gained at the expense of Merkel's CDU, is more conservative.
philosslayer
(3,076 posts)That the AfD is significantly more right wing than the CDU. Are you anti migrant and anti-immigration? Does this make you happy?
tabasco
(22,974 posts)Otherwise, it's no more conservative than the conservative CDU.
German working people, like my wife, have been hurt by mass immigration and the eurozone. DOES THIS MAKE YOU HAPPY?
philosslayer
(3,076 posts)And pro migrant. I'm not happy that your wife has been hurt, but I support Mrs. Merkel's position on the issue.
coyote
(1,561 posts)Because Merkel immigration policy is batshit crazy. They even entertained the idea of putting the refugees in my son's elementary school. Brilliant idea....placing young Syrian men along with school aged children from 6-10.
Merkel has literally taken these refugees and dumped at the door steps of the local towns and told them to deal with it. It's no wonder the CDU is losing big time.
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)It doesn't seem to be a typo.
If so, this is epic.
branford
(4,462 posts)you will be punished at the ballot box.
These are only regional elections, and it does not bode well for next years national elections.
branford
(4,462 posts)about the German elections and its repercussions.
http://blogs.reuters.com/macroscope/2016/03/13/what-do-sundays-german-state-elections-mean-for-merkel/
Helen Borg
(3,963 posts)
MowCowWhoHow III
(2,103 posts)
muriel_volestrangler
(101,305 posts)That's a silver lining. In the other 2 Lander, it's basically been gains by AfD and losses by everyone else. 
forest444
(5,902 posts)Cal33
(7,018 posts)Germany. Countries need a birth-rate of 2.1 children per couple in order to keep
the population the same for the future.
Germany's birth-rate has fallen to 1.4 in the past decade. This is an alarming
situation for the nation. For one thing, there are fewer and fewer young people
working to support the older generations. They need a higher birth-rate. And
Germans seem reluctant to have more children. One solution to this problem
is to invite immigrants. Usually immigrants are people on the young side.
Oldsters don't have the energy to make such a move, nor do they have any wish
to adapt to a very different life-style at their age.
Merkel did try. Like many national leaders, she is more popular abroad than at
home.
tabasco
(22,974 posts)which offers a great number of advantages in itself. The argument about supporting the older generation is fallacious and ridiculous. A lower population will result in lower numbers of old people. A modern nation can adapt to support a temporarily larger number of old people for one generation.
Cal33
(7,018 posts)this situation is going to last only one generation? Nobody can foretell. What we do
know is that people are living longer and longer. Don't you agree?
happyslug
(14,779 posts)Sorry, yes 1.4 is below the replacement level, but Russia had a similar situation in 2000, Putin solution was to increase wages and increase benefits to families with children.
Today, Children cost money and many families are happy with two or less children. Given other families have NONE, you end up with a population shortage. Population shortages ends up INCREASING WAGES so the fewer people can support a larger elderly population. The problem is technically NOT the shortage of workers to take care of the elderly, but the shortage of workers willing to work for the LOW PAY in jobs related to helping the elderly. That low pay also lead to such low pay employees yo move to higher paying jobs, which causes a "Shortage" of workers to take care of the elderly. How do you solve that problem? By increasing wages, something the Conservatives in Germany do NOT want to do (You increase wages on the low end, higher paying job earners shift to the new high pay jobs or demand higher pay from their current employers, thus any wage increase means an increase to all wage earners).
In economics , you can NEVER had a job shortage, the problem is job shortage at a pay rate Employers want to pay. That is the "Shortage" everyone is fearing, economic pressure to raise wages over the next 20 to 30 years.
pampango
(24,692 posts)the first to take place in Germany since the chancellor embarked on her flagship open-doors approach to the migration crisis."
The anti-refugee party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), has shaken up Germany’s political landscape with dramatic gains at regional elections, entering state parliament for the first time in three regions off the back of rising anger with Angela Merkel’s asylum policy.
But, in a sign of the increasingly polarised nature of Germany’s political debate, pro-refugee candidates also achieved two resounding victories in the elections – the first to take place in Germany since the chancellor embarked on her flagship open-doors approach to the migration crisis.
Merkel’s Christian Democrat party suffered painful defeats to more left-leaning parties in two out of three states, one of them Baden-Württemberg, a region dominated by the CDU since the end of the second world war. News weekly Der Spiegel described the result as a “black Sunday” for the conservatives. The CDU also failed to oust the incumbent Social Democrats in Rhineland-Palatinate.
But it was the breakthrough of the AfD – a party that did not exist a little more than three years ago and last year was on the verge of collapse – that was arguably most striking. In Saxony-Anhalt in the former east Germany, the party with links to the far-right Pegida movement had gained 24%, according to initial exit polls, thus becoming the second-biggest party behind the CDU. In both Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg, it appeared to have gained more than 10%.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/13/anti-refugee-party-makes-big-gains-in-german-state-elections
Denzil_DC
(7,231 posts)While the UK press rushes towards headlines along the theme of 'Controversial refugee policy: Merkel suffers dramatically in regional elections' or 'Crushing verdict on open-door migration', just this:
The only one of the three states in which Merkel's CDU party did indeed suffer a dramatic loss of minus 12 percent is the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg in which the CDU candidate critiqued Merkel's refugee policy.
The winner in that state, Baden-Wuerttemberg's Prime Minister Kretschman and his Green party, did actively support Merkel's policy, to the point of Prime Minister Kretschman saying he was 'praying for Ms. Merkel's health and well-being'. This victory of an incumbent and supporter of Merkel's refugees policy can hardly be interpreted as a rejection of that very same policy.
A similar situation in the state of Rheinland-Pfalz where the Christian-Democratic challenger Julia Kloeckner also tried to garner votes by distancing herself from Merkel and lost to the Social-Democratic incumbent.
In the state of Sachsen-Anhalt, where the xenophobic AfD won a dramatic 24%, Chancellor Merkel's CDU only lost 2.5 percent. It is the Social Democrats there who lost more than 11%, as well as Die Linke at minus 7 percent.
The - alarming - rise of the right-wing anti-immigrant party AfD is, of course, to be seen in the context of the refugee crisis.
The dramatic loser of this election, though, is probably not Angela Merkel, but rather the Christian-Democratic candidates who distanced themselves from her, as well as the Social Democrats and Die Linke.
Roughly two-thirds of voters backed parties today that support Chancellor Merkel's refugee policy. There is no reason whatsoever to belittle the rise of AfD, but there is also no plausible narrative for declaring Merkel's refugee policy as having been defeated today.
And before the UK press compares AfD with Ukip or Le Pen, assuming AfD were EU haters like these other two parties, take a look at AfD's party manifesto: AfD passionately endorses David Cameron and his proposal for what he considers a reformed EU: https://www.alternativefuer.de/programm-hintergrund/programmatik/
Noteworthy also how The Daily Telegraph writes 'The Christian Democrats lost two out of three regional states in the elections' today, falsely implying that Merkel's Christian Democrats were the incumbents, not the unsuccessful challengers.
What remains is that Germany is now politically more polarised than it has been for many decades. Chancellor Merkel's refugee policy has been challenged, but it certainly has not been rejected by a majority.
https://www.facebook.com/wolfgang.blau/posts/10153975458770960?pnref=story
mwrguy
(3,245 posts)davidn3600
(6,342 posts)Merkel did not have any plans to deal with the cultural and social clashes that would be inevitable when you have such different societies being pushed together. These are two very different populations. The religions are different. The political and philosophical ideologies are not the same. You WILL have a culture clash.
When you are dealing with this many people flooding in, there are questions that need to be answered. Where will these people work? Where will their kids go to school? How will you feed them? Who will pay for the social services required to take care of them? These are serious questions the German people deserve to have an answer to. And Merkel never answered these questions. Throwing open your gates, throwing up your arms and yelling "Welcome refugees!" looks great at first. But then when you start dealing with trying to transition them into your society....you are going to face serious issues that need to be solved in a hurry or they will snowball on you.
You can talk about tolerance and acceptance all you want, but you can't be ignorant of reality. And a lot of people on the left in Europe (and even some here in America) are very ignorant of reality when it comes to borders and immigration. You are essentially trying to fit square pegs in a round holes here. Sometimes cultures are not fully compatible.
Denzil_DC
(7,231 posts)The results for German anti-refugee party Alternative für Deutschland in Sunday’s regional elections are remarkable: it won 15% of the vote in Baden-Württemberg, 12.5% in Rhineland-Palatinate and more than 24% in the east German state of Saxony-Anhalt – the strongest showing for a rightwing, populist party since the end of the second world war.
The last time these three states voted (in 2011), AfD didn’t even exist. Whatever way you look at the numbers, the AfD result is significant. However, the prevailing narrative in swaths of the press on Monday morning – that the results are a rejection of Angela Merkel’s refugee policy – is simplistic.
Here’s why. In Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD did best, the vote for Merkel’s CDU held. The party dropped less than three points compared with 2011.
According to an exit poll for the state, a substantial majority of voters across all parties, except the AfD, prefers an open and tolerant society to a traditional one. The strongest source of AfD support, in the east German state and elsewhere, were previous non-voters (in all three states turnout was up by 10 points) ...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2016/mar/14/german-election-afd-gain-remarkable-cdu-angela-merkel
