An unprecedented seven parties entered the Bundestag after the September 2017 election. Alongside Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), her Bavarian allies the CSU, and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the four smaller parties were the leftist Die Linke, the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), the Greens and the right wing AfD. Before the election, the CDU/CSU and the SPD held 80% of the seats in the Bundestag, with the Greens and Die Linke holding the rest. What this means is that the executive was strong and the legislature was weak. The 2017 election changed the German political landscape. [...]
The right wing of the CDU cannot forgive Merkel for moving the once conservative CDU so far in a liberal-social democratic direction. Conservatives have been grumbling for a long time, and are thinking about an end to the Merkel era. Merkel’s CDU has lost more influence in the new government than it has gained. [...]
The CSU is frustrated with Merkel’s course on migration and feeling the pressure from the right wing, namely the AfD. Even outside of Bavaria, many Germans don’t trust Merkel to fix the refugee system. A recent poll showed 53 percent say Merkel hasn’t managed the refugee influx well. Meanwhile, a poll in Stern magazine showed that about two-thirds of Germans agree with the CSU’s position on turning away refugees at the border.
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