German polls: Steep drop in support for Merkel, migrants

As a result of the New Year’s Eve sexual attacks in Cologne and in other German cities by North African/Arab Muslim immigrants, it is just a matter of time before Merkel is thrown under the DeinBus by her own party.

Speaking of DeinBus, a busload of 31 Syrian refugees was sent from a small town in Bavaria (the conservative heartland of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union Party [CDU] and its coalition partner, the Christian Social Union [CSU) to Merkel’s Berlin office, to demonstrate Bavaria’s opposition to any more refugees being permitted in its region.

Peter Drier, the mayor of the Bavarian town of Landshut was likely speaking for the majority of German people complaining that the current number of over one million refugees cannot be properly integrated and treated properly, particularly if Germany was to face another wave of one million refugees this year.

To date, Merkel has refused to put a cap on the number of refugees entering Germany, on the lame excuse that such a cap can not be enforced. Of course such a cap can be enforced. But it would require erecting walls and fences and doing what other European nations are doing, out of political and national necessity.

Recent polls indicated that Merkel’s approval rating has dropped to its lowest rating since 2011, primarily due to her mishandling the refugee crisis, especially after the Cologne assaults.

Sixty per cent of the poll respondents said that Germany could no longer withstand the flood of refugees, up from 46% in December. Fifty-six per cent of Germans disapproved of Merkel’s handling of the refugee crisis, while 39% supported the Chancellor.

My gut feeling is that this poll seriously underestimates the depth of opposition to Merkel, and to the influx of any more refugees in Germany.

Another German poll revealed that 61% of respondents were opposed to accepting any more refugees since the assaults, and only 29% of those polled believed that Merkel and her government could handle the unrestricted influx of mostly Muslim refugees.

The popularity of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union has dropped to 37%.

To further complicate Merkel’s political life, her coalition partner, the Christian Social Union Party, hasthreatened to take the German government to federal court to force the Merkel government to limit the number of refugees.

(In effect, the CSU are taking themselves to court. How bizarre!)

Another junior coalition partner of Merkel’s government, the Social Democrats, have already broken ranks with Merkel over the refugee matter.

In addition, 40 politicians from Merkel’s own party, CDU, have signed a petition calling for the borders to be closed for all asylum seekers.

Frankly, I, as many Germans and Europeans outside Germany and North Americans, feel a certainSchadenfreude in the precipitous fall of the impervious and proud Merkel.

For years, Merkel, as leader of the most powerful economic engine of Europe, ruled with an iron fiscal fist over the struggling economies of Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain, showing very little sympathy for the plight of their citizens.

Now Merkel is caught in a mishegas of her own making.

It is just a matter of time before a putsch in her own ranks pushes her out of power.