Voters in Germany’s regional election handed a heavy blow to Chancellor Angela Merkel and her welcoming refugee policy on Sunday (4 September).
Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) were beaten into third place by the anti-immigrant, anti-Islam Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern by taking 20.8 percent of the vote.
The CDU fell from 23 percent to 19 percent in their worst result in the state.
Both came in behind the Social Democr...
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Eszter Zalan is a Hungarian journalist who worked for Brussels-based news portal EUobserver specialising in European politics, focusing on populism and Brexit.