Angela Merkel`s uneasy victory
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been re-elected for a fourth term while nationalists have made a historic surge in federal elections.
Her conservative CDU/CSU bloc has seen its worst result in almost 70 years but will remain the largest in parliament.
While her alliance has remained the largest party, it is the worst result for the alliance between the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) since 1949, when national elections were held in Germany for the first time after World War II.
The chancellor is being punished for opening Germany’s door to almost 900 000 undocumented refugees and migrants, BBC reported.
Its current coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), says it will go into opposition after historic losses.
The most likely scenario is of a ‘Jamaica’ coalition, so-called because of the colours of Jamaica’s flag. It includes the black CDU/CSU, the yellow, business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) who are returning to parliament after a four-year hiatus – and the Greens.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD), the new force in the Bundestag, has capitalised on a backlash against Mrs Merkel’s policy towards migrants and refugees, many of them from war-torn, mainly Muslim countries like Syria.
Its programme is heavily anti-immigrant, and particularly anti-Islam. It called for a ban on minarets and considered Islam incompatible with German culture.
Additionally, several of its candidates have been linked to far-right remarks.
Prominent AfD figure Frauke Petry said on Twitter (in German) that Germany had experienced an incomparable ‘political earthquake’. The party’s performance was better than forecasted in opinion polls.
