The German government will stick by its existing refugee policy, a spokesman has said, after the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland made strong gains in regional elections on Sunday.

Asked if the results in three German states, where support for chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives dwindled, would lead to a change in policy, Steffen Seibert said: “The German government will continue to pursue its refugee policy with all its might both at home and abroad.”

German elections: AfD's remarkable gains don't tell the whole story Read more

AfD entered state parliaments in all three regions that voted, winning 24% of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt and over 10% in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate.



Merkel’s Christian Democrat party (CDU) lost support in Baden-Württemberg – a region dominated by the CDU since the end of the second world war – and Rhineland Palatinate but remained the largest party in Saxony-Anhalt.

The results suggested that German politicians increasingly appear to have two options: rally behind their chancellor, or rail against her.

Although AfD enjoyed considerable momentum, the majority of votes still went to parties who support Merkel’s pro-refugee stance. In all three states, incumbent premiers held on to their seat. In Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate respectively, the Green and Social Democratic (SPD) candidates managed to increase their vote after resolutely backing the chancellor’s open-border position.

The elections came after a dramatic seven months that have seen the German public become increasingly polarised over Merkel’s stance, with well over 1.1 million refugees entering the country in the past year and the euphoric welcome given to many refugees last summer at Munich train station being replaced by anger, especially when, on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, hundreds of women were reported to have been sexually harassed and raped by men of largely north African and Arabic background.

In an article headlined Germany stays cool, Die Zeit’s political editor, Bernd Ulrich, argued that the voting public had proven a “deep sense for quality and authenticity” by rewarding “charismatic and self-effacing” state premiers like the Greens’ Winfried Kretschmann and the SPD’s Malu Dreyer, while punishing candidates such as the CDU’s Julia Klöckner, who had come across as schemers by campaigning “for the chancellor, but against her politics”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Angela Merkel presents flowers to CDU candidates Reiner Haseloff (right), Guido Wolf and Julia Klöckner (left) at a party meeting in Berlin on Monday. Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

On average, Ulrich wrote, “two-thirds have voted for parties who support Angela Merkel’s relatively liberal refugee policy or stood for an even more liberal course”.

Green state premier Kretschmann is receiving considerable attention. The 67-year-old veteran had led the environmental party to a historic 30.3% in a state which has been a conservative stronghold since the end of the second world war.

Germans vote in state elections seen as test for Merkel's refugee policy Read more

The secret of Kretschmann’s success was that he had come up with a “credible impersonation of a Swabian CDU state premier”, said Zeit’s editor-in-chief. Süddeutsche Zeitung praised the former chemistry teacher’s “resolute composure” in a increasingly polarised political climate.

The rise of the AfD, meanwhile, will significantly alter the political landscape in the country. Spiegel commentator Sebastian Fischer warned of “Austrian conditions” in Germany. “In our neighbouring country the rightwing populists of the FPÖ have established themselves firmly over the years and now have a stake in the race to the chancellorship. The political discourse has been poisoned. Social Democrats and Christian Democrats are doomed to be locked in an eternal coalition – which in turn is just what the FPÖ have been waiting for. A vicious circle.”

Süddeutsche Zeitung’s veteran commentator Heribert Prantl wrote: “The remarkable thing about the AfD is that it succeeded without a real leader at the top. We’ve always know that xenophobic attitudes prevail among up to 20% of the population in our country – just like in other EU countries, where far-right parties have long established themselves. But until [now] the prevailing view in Germany was that this bottom crust could not be active without a charismatic leader. It now emerges that such a figure is not required.”