On 5 September , Chancellor Angela Merkel took part of the responsibility for the CDU result in the elections . " I am the party leader , I am the chancellor — you ca n't separate those in people 's eyes , so I am of course responsible too " for the result , she stated at a press conference at the G20 summit in China . Again she defended her decisions regarding refugee policies , saying they were " right " . She also noted that federal and refugee policies had " superimposed " " everything " during the election campaign . Merkel faced not only increasing criticism of the CSU party after the elections , also AfD leader Frauke Petry criticised Merkel : " This ignorance is exemplary , " she said . " It is not just ignorance . What we see here is the continuing arrogance of power . " Also critics within the CDU party commented on the result . Specialist for domestic affairs Wolfgang Bosbach called the election day a " historic date " , because the AfD came in before the CDU and the CDU was only third political force in a German territorial state . He demanded an alteration of the refugee policies , but saw no alternative for Merkel as the chancellor . SPD chief Sigmar Gabriel accused Angela Merkel of " simply repeating ' we will manage it ' without doing it as well . " Green party chief Cem Özdemir said that the persistent dispute within the Grand Coalition in Berlin had been " grist to the mill " of the AfD . The Left chairman Bernd Riexinger criticised the CDU and SPD on the grounds that they had " embraced " the positions of the AfD during the election campaign
G20 summit
2016 G20 Hangzhou summit
2016 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election