Sahra Wagenknecht attacks ex-Chancellor: “The AfD is Merkel’s baby”

BSW chairman Sahra Wagenknecht rejected the criticism of the former CDU Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel about the Union faction in the Bundestag. “Angela Merkel’s speech testifies to little self -criticism,” said the party leader of the star. “After all, the AfD is Merkel’s baby in a way.”

Wagenknecht also said: “The fact that Merkel is now criticizing her own party to correct the loss of control initiated during her reign during migration is remarkable.”

In an explanation, Merkel had described it as “wrong” that the Union had enforced an application together with the AfD, FDP and without a fraction on Wednesday. The decision provides for the rejection of asylum seekers at the German borders. Merkel complained about the majority formation using the AfD: It must be about “not as tactical maneuvers, but in the matter honest, moderate in the sound and on the basis of European law”, she said.

For Wagenknecht, these statements are an affront. “When Ms. Merkel opened the borders for hundreds of thousands of refugees in 2015, the AfD was three percent,” she said. Without the refugee crisis, the party would “probably sunk into insignificance”. On the other hand, the “very quickly noticeable problems in Merkel’s migration policy brought the AfD to the Bundestag for the first time in 2017”.

The BSW had not approved the application on Wednesday. Wagenknecht confirmed that this Friday would agree to the draft of an influx limitation law brought in by the CDU and CSU. “We will do what we think is correct in terms of content,” she said. “The influx limitation law is a correct step to limit migration. That is why we will agree.”

Wagenknecht criticized the criticism of the CDU and CSU’s voting behavior as “theater staging”: “The AfD has not increased because someone in the Bundestag has coordinated with it, but because politics has been failing for years to have the most pressing problems of people to solve.”