German Frontrunner Suffers Blow With Shock Migration Defeat
(Bloomberg) -- German conservative leader Friedrich Merz suffered a shock setback in his bid to become chancellor after his effort to push through tough migration legislation with backing from the far-right failed in a tense parliamentary vote.
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Despite opposition from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats and the Greens, Merz thought he had enough support on Friday after succeeding with a related non-binding resolution earlier this week.
But the measure was surprisingly rejected with 349 votes against versus 338 in favor and five abstentions. Twelve lawmakers in the conservative bloc of 196 lawmakers broke rank and didn’t cast a vote.
His failure dents his authority and opens the door to the nationalist Alternative for Germany, or AfD, to appeal to voters concerned about irregular migration, a key topic ahead of the Feb. 23 election. Merz tried to shift the blame to the SPD and the Greens, highlighting the deepening rifts in Germany’s mainstream.
“The asylum turnaround that we tried to achieve failed because of the Greens and the Social Democrats,” said Merz. “I would have liked to have seen a different result, but from our point of view, this result creates clarity — clarity about where we stand and where the Social Democrats and the Greens stand.”
With tensions high in the midst of campaigning, the parliamentary vote was delayed for four hours due to last-ditch efforts to find a compromise. The ensuing debate in the Bundestag in Berlin was ill-tempered and frequently interrupted as parties traded barbs and blamed one another over the impasse.
The Christian Democrat leader was seeking to pass a crackdown on irregular migration with the support of the AfD — a move the would have been a first for binding legislation in the country’s postwar history.
“What a disgrace,” Scholz said in a socia media post. “The whole maneuver was in vain and only damaged democracy.”
The incumbent chancellor was present in the Bundestsag, but didn’t speak. In the Social Democrat caucus, 203 voted against the law and four lawmakers didn’t cast their ballot.
For Merz, the move was a high-risk gambit. After a recent deadly attack in Bavaria — where the suspect is a rejected asylum seeker from Afghanistan — the CDU leader was betting that a hard-line would help neutralize the appeal of the AfD, which is second in the polls.
“Friedrich Merz jumped in as a tiger and ended up as a bedside rug,” said Alice Weidel, the AfD’s chancellor candidate. “Merz does not stand for political change and that is why he suffered this bitter defeat today.”
--With assistance from Kamil Kowalcze.
(Updates with Merz comments beginning in second paragraph.)
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