‘Send Merkel home,’ says right-wing rival in constituency battle

Vowing to “shove her off the throne”, Leif-Erik Holm of the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is mounting a robust challenge to Chancellor Angela Merkel in her constituency as she seeks re-election on September 24.

Merkel, 63, has held the northeastern district bordering the Baltic Sea since she entered parliament in 1990, though she grew up in Templin – due south and in the next state. Holm, 47, a self-styled “local boy”, says he wants to “send Merkel home”.

“Merkel was very popular here, that’s true. But times have changed,” he said, insisting her decision in 2015 to leave German borders open to more than a million migrants would cost her. “People are asking ‘what is she doing?’”

Merkel won the constituency with 56 per cent of the vote at the last national election, in 2013. Now, the AfD is emboldened in the district after beating her conservatives into third place in the wider northeastern region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern last year.

“Merkel has failed in a lot of people’s eyes and they are looking for an alternative,” said Holm, a former presenter at a local radio station.