from Zero Hedge
On Sunday, Angela Merkel suffered a bitter defeat at the ballot box in state elections that effectively served as a referendum on Berlin’s open-door migrant policy.
Exit polls showed support for the Chancellor’s CDU falling in Baden-Wuerttemberg, in Saxony-Anhalt, and in Rhineland-Palatinate versus 2011. Those results were validated as CDU lost ground versus the last election across the board.
The big winner on the day: Alternative for Germany or, AfD. The anti-immigration, nationalists didn’t manage to win the most votes in any of the three states in contention, but their strong showing – especially in Saxony-Anhalt, where they managed to win 24.2% of the vote represented a resounding rebuke of Germany’s official stance on Mid-East asylum seekers.