anti-immigration party wins a second German state election, Christian Dems lose all seats | Eastern NC Now

Germany's anti-immigration populist nationalist party, the Alternativ fur Deutschland (AfD) has won a second state election, as results have been announced in the state election for the state of Mecklenburg - Lower Pommerania.  They have also almost doubled their vote in the other German state voting Sunday, the laft-leaning state of Berlin.

The lead party in the national governing coalition, the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) did not do so well.  In Mecklenburg, the state where Angela Merkel got her start in politics, the CDU failed to cross the threshold to win seats and lost all of their seats.  They also lost vote share in Berlin.

In Mecklenburg, the AfD campaigned on closing the state's reception centers for migrants and turning the buildings into departure centers to  assist in re-migration (deportation) of illegal aliens, and setting up a new state police unit to locate and apprehend illegal aliens subject to deportation.

https://rmx.news/article/germany-afd-proposes-deportation-police-before-regional-election-in-mecklenburg-vorpommern/

Election results in Mecklenburg gave the AfD 38.29% of the vote, up from 16.7% in the last state election, more than doubling their vote.  The CDU vote collapsed to 4.88%, down from 9.9% from the prior election.

The main parties of the left in Mecklenburg also lost vote share and seats.  The Social Democrats received 35.45%, down from 39.6% last election.  The Left Party, the former East German Communist Party , received 6.55%, down from 9.0% in the prior election.  The Green Party vote decreased slightly to 5.67%

AfD was the only party in the election to gain vote share.  All others declined.

Unfortunately, the anti-immigration populist party of the left, the BSW, nattowly failed to win seats in either Mecklenburg or Berlin.   It is the BSW that is negotiating forming a state government in Saxony-Anhalt.

For the CDU, this disaster of being completely frozen out of a state lantag (parliament) following their major losses in Saxony-Anhalt and Berlin, is likely to increase calls for replacing party leader and federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz.  Merz has been a key in pushing the CDU to demand a "firewall" to block the AfD from government at any level. Of the two leading candidates to replace Merz, one wants to end the firewall while the other wants to ban the AfD.  That is totalitarian politics - if you an't beat them,  ban them.