Merkel’s Pyrrhic Victory: Worst Party Performance Since 1949 As Populist AfD Beat Expectations
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has emerged with the largest party in Germany’s national election but has lost well over a million voters as the anti-mass migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) has come a solid third in the race, beating previous expectations.
Ms Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) were always expected to win this year’s German national election but few predicted that the CDU would have its worst electoral showing since 1949. Merkel herself expressed disappointment at the result but vowed to continue to govern Germany, likely with new coalition partners.
The Social Democrats (SPD) under former European Union parliament president Martin Schulz did even worse, scoring only 20 percent of the vote according to exit polls from German public broadcaster ARD. The result is the worst in the party’s history since the Second World War.
Martin Schulz, who many saw as lacklustre during his televised debate with Merkel, has vowed to stay on and fight “right-wing extremism” in the German Bundestag. Schulz also announced that he would not seek to renew the “grand coalition” between the SPD and the CDU claiming that he did not want to see the populist anti-mass migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) become the biggest opposition party.
The only party enjoying a decisive improvement in fortunes in the election is the AfD who entered parliament for the first time with a projected 13.5 percent or around 88 seats in the Bundestag.
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