By
our dpa-correspondent and Europe Online
Berlin (dpa) – The traditionally beer-fuelled political rallies
marking the beginning of lent on Wednesday turned into a stand-off
between Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s centre-right affiliate party and
the right-wing conservative Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Horst Seehofer, a political heavyweight in Bavaria‘s Christian Social
Union (CSU), all but declared war on the AfD, which launched on an
anti-euro platform two years ago and has openly stated its desire to
draw Bavarian voters away from the CSU.
“There will be no democratically legitimate party to the right of
[the CSU] in the long term,” Seehofer said at a rally in Passau,
referencing critics‘ assessment that the AfD will fail to establish
itself as a sustainable force in mainstream politics.
Seehofer used the rally – where party leaders traditionally attack
each other with acerbic speeches – to position the CSU as the go-to
party for voters who are critical of immigration, a domain which the
AfD has campaigned on extensively.
“We are not the social welfare office for the entire world,” Seehofer
said in front of thousands of CSU members in Passau, adding that
migrants from Balkan states whose asylum bids are rejected by the
German government should immediately be deported.
Bernd Lucke, the controversial head of the AfD, kicked off the
speeches earlier in the day in the town of Osterhofen by poking fun
at his party‘s conservative stance on immigration.
“In Bavaria, I am a part of the immigration problem,” said Lucke,
whose party took its first parliamentary seats in a western German
state this week after winning 6.1 per cent of the vote, thereby
clearing the 5-per-cent hurdle to enter the legislature.
The event marking the end of Carnival is at the centre of a series of
rallies held by Germany‘s mainstream political parties.
A series of other political heavyweights including vice chancellor
and head of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) Sigmar Gabriel spoke at
the events. Merkel is expected to speak later in the day.
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