Photo Gallery Rage Against the Machine
For years, Germany appeared to be immune from the European phenomenon of right-wing populism, but this belief died on March 13 with the success of the Alternative for Germany party in three state elections. More and more people in Germany are frustrated with leaders "at the top" and are keen to stand up to them. Much of the anger is directed at a single person: Angela Merkel. Here, protestors hold up a banner opposing the chancellor in the eastern city of Erfurt.
Frauke Petry, chairwoman of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has been everywhere in the German media since her party did well in a trio of March 13 state elections. With anger against Chancellor Angela Merkel widespread, her party clearly benefited from its anti-immigration position.
Merkel has spent most of her time in the Chancellery steering her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party toward the middle, taking over positions espoused by the center-left Social Democrats and even the Greens. That, though, has left her vulnerable on the right -- a situation the AfD has taken advantage of.
Even as most in Germany support Merkel's course in the refugee crisis, a significant and vocal minority does not. While the far right has sought to benefit from the anger, many of those who support the AfD are disaffected voters who previously supported the CDU and even the SPD and Greens.
Within the CDU, the impression has become widespread that Merkel has walled herself off and is no longer reachable, preferring to rely on a few close confidants within the party -- such as her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, pictured here.
That the AfD did well in the March 13 elections in Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt was not a surprise, given the national mood surrounding the refugee crisis. But the degree of those successes, which included a 24 percent result in Saxony-Anhalt, was unexpected.
The AfD started as an anti-euro party. But Frauke Petry managed to wrest control of the party from its founder Bernd Lucke and transform it into an anti-immigration party.
While the CDU did poorly in two of the three state elections on March 13 -- here, wine bottles with CDU lead candidate Juliy Klöckner in Rhineland-Palatinate -- candidates that support Merkel's refugee policies won in all three states.
