Germany’s political establishment is still absorbing the shock of Sunday’s state election in Saxony-Anhalt, where the Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged to 43.8 percent and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Chancellor Friedrich Merz crashed to 17.2 percent. Merz called the result the CDU’s “heaviest defeat” in decades and said it could not simply be … Continue reading ‘Deeply shocked’ – Merz speaks of ‘consequences’ after historic CDU defeat in Saxony-Anhalt