MOST Germans believe Angela Merkel will struggle to regain her country’s confidence after her disastrous asylum policies led to major losses in last week’s state elections, a poll has revealed.
By Simon Osborne and Monika Pallenberg
Mrs Merkel has taken responsibility for her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party’s poor showing at the polls and admitted making mistakes in the handling of the migrant crisis.
But she stopped short of saying her decision to allow more than a million refugees to flood into Germany was wrong despite facing severe criticism.
An opinion poll has revealed only over a third of Germans believe Mrs Merkel’s comments have done enough to win back the trust of the electorate.
Results showed 58 per cent of Germans do not believe she can successfully gain back trust despite admitting she had made mistakes.
That figure rose to 91 per cent among voters who backed the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. For Free Democratic Party voters it was 71 per cent, followed by Social Democratic Party (SPD) voters at 61 per cent.
The poll showed supporters of the CDU and Christian Social Union (CSU) were more optimistic with 58 per cent believing Mrs Merkel may well recover trust as a result of her post-election comments.
Angela Merkel suffered a drubbing in the state elections
For some time, we didn’t have enough control. No one wants a repeat of last year’s situation, including me
She said: “If I could, I would turn back time by many, many years, so that I could have prepared the whole government and the authorities for the situation which hit us out of the blue in the late summer of 2015.
“For some time, we didn’t have enough control. No one wants a repeat of last year’s situation, including me.”
Angela Merkel’s migrant policies saw more than 1.1 million people enter Germany last year
The Chancellor said she had an ”absolutely certain feeling that Germany would come out better from this difficult period”.
Berlin’s political landscape was redrawn last Sunday with the CDU and SPD plunging to the worst returns in their parties’ histories while the AfD and leftwing Die Linke party posted impressive gains.