Merkel re-elected by party to lead it into 2017 polls

As in previous years, her leadership candidacy was unopposed.

At the last vote in 2014 Merkel garnered 96.7 of her party’s support and this week’s ballot will be closely scrutinised for any sign of dissent.

Her decision past year to open Germany’s doors to some 1 million migrants sapped some grassroots support and has dented the CDU’s poll ratings. Right-wing politicians are openly blaming Merkel’s policy for what they decry as a migrant-fueled crime wave.

Several delegates lashed out at Merkel’s liberal refugee stance in conference speeches.

“A big segment of core voters have been put off”, said party member Christine Arlt-Palmer.

Deriding the centre-right party’s decisions, SPD parliamentary group chief Thomas Oppermann said: “The chancellor asked the party for help (in her re-election bid) and instead got knocked between the legs”.

Merkel came out fighting on the first day of her conservative party congress pledging to ban the burka and bring the refugee crisis under control.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel made her first direct call for banning “full veil” Islamic coverings.

She said that a refugee situation of the kind Germany had endured in the summer of previous year “can and should not be repeated”. “This was and remains our declared political goal”.

Merkel said she would support a nationwide ban as she addressed the annual CDU convention.

Women in Germany’s Muslim community of 4.7 million who actually wear a full burqa – or a loose veil that covers the entire body, often including mesh over the eyes – are exceedingly rare.

Germany wants to continue assisting refugees fleeing war and persecution, Spahn noted, but can not continue to provide for all migrants.

“If we only talk about healthcare for refugees, but not about the shortage of doctors in the country, then the mood sours in the population”, she warned in an interview with Spiegel magazine ahead of the congress.

Merkel told the conference that the battle for 2017 election would be like no other in the history of unified Germany, with the CDU facing rigorous challenges from both the left and the right.

Merkel isn’t the only leader calling for the new law.

“The world hasn’t become stronger in 2016, but weaker and less certain”, Merkel said.

“We will fight for Angela Merkel to have a strong majority” in next year’s election, Manfred Weber, a CSU member who heads the Christian Democrat bloc in the European Parliament, said in an interview.

Merkel’s comments represent a change in rhetoric: in September, she called for stricter guidelines on official situations where wearing a full face veil was not permissible, while also stating that “lived diversity is the logical effect of freedom”.