German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed Monday to “win back trust” of voters angered by her open-door refugee policy, while admitting her share of responsibility for her conservatives’ humiliating election loss to an anti-migrant party. The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party clinched almost 21 percent in its first bid for seats in the regional parliament of the north-eastern ex-Communist state on Sunday, coming second and knocking Merkel’s party into third place with just 19 percent. ‘Protest storm’The state vote was held exactly one year after Merkel opened German borders to a mass influx of mainly Syrian refugees stranded in Hungary. “This was more than a small state election, it was a vote on Merkel,” said news site Spiegel Online, pointing at the “protest storm” in “Merkel’s living room”. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen wrote on Twitter: “What was impossible yesterday has become possible: the AfD patriots have swept away Merkel’s party!”

Source: Hindustan Times September 05, 2016 20:15 UTC