German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been hurt by regional elections held last weekend. In that ballot, the rightwing Alternative for Germany (AfD) surmounted the 5 percent barrier that allows it to take seats in three state parliaments. The vote is most easily seen as a protest against Merkel's immigration policies, which have opened Germany's doors to refugees. That is an oversimplification of the results, however. A closer reading suggests a growing dissatisfaction with German politics more generally. Growing support for rightwing groups is troubling, but those concerns must be kept in perspective.
At first glance, German voters have every reason to back their government, run by Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in coalition with the left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SDP). The German economy grew 1.7 percent in 2015, its strongest showing in four years, unemployment is at 25-year lows, and the government enjoys a budget surplus of €19 billion. But a tidal wave of refugees — 1 million asylum seekers reached Germany last year — have overwhelmed other considerations and prompted voters to back the AfD in three regional ballots.
An anti-euro party formed in the aftermath of the Greek financial crisis, AfD is now seen as populist, xenophobic and anti-immigrant and has focused its campaigning on the refugee situation. That crusade paid off in last Sunday's vote. The party won 12.5 percent in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, 15 percent in Baden-Wurttemberg, and 24 percent in Saxony-Anhalt, the strongest showing for a rightwing party since the end of World War II. AfD's ability to gain backing in diverse states — Baden-Wurttemberg is wealthy, while Saxony-Anhalt is considered part of the former East German rust belt — suggests that the party's appeal is spreading. AfD now has seats in half of Germany's 16 state parliaments. The conservative head of the Bavarian state government, an ally of Merkel, called the results "a tectonic shift in Germany's political landscape."