2015 Migrant Crisis architect Angela Merkel has again lashed out at her successor in German politics for moving away from the open borders paradigm and working with the populist-right, saying she finds it impossible to “remain silent in such a situation”.
Former German Chancellor and leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU) Angela Merkel has again been drawn back into undermining her successor as party leader, just as he fights the final weeks of the election campaign that could put the CDU back in the driving seat of German politics.
Friedrich Merz, a rival to Merkel when she was in power, has spent months trying to rebrand the centre-right conservative CDU from a party that most associate with recklessly open borders to one that can be trusted with power again. Yet as the party leads the polls in the final weeks of the campaign for the snap Federal elections this week, his leadership has come under withering fire from his predecessor.
Speaking at the invitation of German newspaper Die Zeit on Wednesday night, Merkel fielded questions before an audience of paying guests in Hamburg and said she was unable to “simply remain silent in such a situation” when the party she once led — and led to crashing electoral defeats — was seeking to enact border controls. Particularly galling for Merkel is Merz agreeing to work with sovereigntist-populist-right wing party the Alternative for Germany (AfD) to get enough votes to pass motions.
She said, reports Die Welt: “Look, I am a citizen, I am a former Chancellor, I had inquiries and I did not think it was right to simply remain silent in such a crucial situation. Instead, I found it so important that I therefore expressed my opinion on the process.”
The AfD has been subject to a so-called firewall or cordon sanitaire for years, and Merkel remains dedicated to keeping the strongly polling force thoroughly frozen out of German politics. Insisting her migration policies, which boosted AfD’s popularity a decade ago after her economic policies led to the party’s creation in the first place, were not “misguided” Merkel also said the AfD rising in the polls now is “no longer my responsibility”.
Remarkably, when asked at the speaking event, Merkel could not give a straight answer whether she believed the political party she led as Chancellor and giant of European politics for 16 years was even her political home any more. As noted by Welt, while Merkel enjoyed an enthusiastic and sympathetic crowd of people who had paid to see her, when she claimed absolute certainty in her border policies which led to the 2015 migrant crisis having been correct, the hall struggled to rouse an applause.
The event’s remarks are the second time Merkel has emerged from retirement to criticise the conservative leader that replaced her. Last week, she said Merz’s move to work with the AfD to pass a border control motion was “wrong”, saying only “democratic parties” should work “moderately in tone” together in the Bundestag.
Germany is less than two weeks away from the Federal elections which will decide the composition of its parliament, the Bundestag, for the next five years. The election was called early in November after the present left-wing coalition government collapsed.
Despite the attempts to undermine it by its previous leader, the centrist-conservative CDU remain ahead in polling but not by enough to hope to govern alone.
The AfD have been polling in second place for some time and seem likely to gain a record number of seats. A right-right coalition of CDU and AfD would, to the dispassionate observer, seem the most logical post-election coalition, yet snobbery around working with populists persists and would likely trigger an anti-Donald Trump-like revulsion response among legacy political and media circles.
