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Merz Slams AfD in Stormy Debate After Far-Right Election Win
Confirmed
In Short: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz clashed with AfD leader Alice Weidel in parliament, accusing her party of being a 'destructive force' and harming German interests.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and AfD leader Alice Weidel faced off in a stormy debate in parliament, with Merz calling the far-right party a 'destructive force' and accusing it of harming German interests. Weidel, meanwhile, accused Merz's coalition with the center left of a failure and warned that the AfD's policies would disrupt basic services.
Merz's Christian Democrats were projected to suffer a disastrous result in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD won almost 44% of the vote. The far-right party sought to form the country’s first far-right state government since World War II, although it was not immediately clear whether it would succeed.
Disruption by AfD MPs became so loud that Bundestag President Julia Klöckner threatened to expel people from the chamber. Weidel accused Merz's government of driving Germany towards bankruptcy and warned of the dangers of mass migration, while Merz warned that the AfD's plans would affect millions.
The election comes amid widespread public discontent with the national government, which has yet to convince many voters it can get the country's sluggish economy back on track. Merz admitted the 'seismic' result had changed Germany, and his party's center-right party has led Saxony-Anhalt for 24 years.
What's still developing
- Siegmund's number two in Saxony-Anhalt, has even suggested that Merz's CDU could work with his party, if it abandons the so-called firewall ( Brandmauer ), under which no mainstream party will work with the far right.
- "A very good campaigner for us in this election campaign was Friedrich Merz. Every day this man is in the chancellery is one too many," he said of Germany's unpopular leader.
- "AfD is a right-wing extremist party. It wants to leave the euro; that would be economic downfall... it works closely together with Russia, it wants a completely different social model," said Franziska Hoppermann, the national general-secretary of Merz's party.
- There is no way over half of Canada would have voted liberal in the last election. afd is not far right they are centrist anti immigration They won for two reasons: The adminstrations failulre on two things : Economic policy and mass immigration.