Germanys Merz Tells Party To stay Course After Protests Against Far-right Vote

Germany’s election frontrunner Friedrich Merz on Monday called on his conservative CDU to “stay the course” after mass protests against its acceptance of far-right AfD support for calls to restrict immigration

Berlin, (APP – UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News – 3rd Feb, 2025) Germany’s election frontrunner Friedrich Merz on Monday called on his conservative CDU to “stay the course” after mass protests against its acceptance of far-right AfD support for calls to restrict immigration.

“We are being attacked and there are protests against our policies,” Merz told the congress of the Christian Democratic Union, which has been split over his unprecedented parliamentary gambit last week.

“But right now it is important to stay the course,” said Merz, insisting again, to lengthy applause, that the CDU would never join forces with the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD).

CDU senior members were meeting in Berlin ahead of the February 23 election, and after nationwide mass protests against Merz’s tactic which broke a taboo in German post-war politics.

Centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz, as well as rights groups and churches, have attacked Merz for breaching the “firewall” against working with the AfD — an issue that has also sparked division among conservatives.

Outrage in parliament and on the streets over Merz’s taboo break, which was also slammed by CDU ex-chancellor Angela Merkel, has injected uncertainty into a campaign in which the conservatives have had a solid lead at around 30 percent.

As protesters again rallied outside the venue with signs that read “shame on you, CDU”, Merz told the party faithful that the CDU had won past elections when it remained steadfast “even in the face of protests and opposition”.

“The vast majority of the population agrees with us that things cannot continue like this, for example in migration policy,” he told some 1,000 senior party members.

He charged that the “shrinking social and political minority” represented by Scholz’s Social Democrats and the Greens “is currently fighting desperately” for relevance in the face of a changing public mood.