After the worst performance in the history by her party, Christian Democratic Union (CDU), in the state election of Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was literally looking exhausted. On Monday, in a press conference, Ms. Merkel said that she would turn back the clock on her refugee policies if she could. The European Refugee Crisis and the rise of the right-wing populists, Alternative for Germany (AfD) led to this rare public expression of regret from Ms. Merkel. She said, “If I could, I would rewind time by many, many years so that I could better prepare myself and the whole government and all those in positions of responsibility for the situation that caught us unprepared in the late summer of 2015”.

Thanks to the refugee crisis and government unpreparedness to tackle millions of Muslim refugees in a Christian dominated open society, for the first time since the second world was, a right-wing party is about to enter Bundestag in next year’s Federal election. Ms. Merkel came out expressing her regret for the refugee policies but that was not until AfD entered 10 out of 16 state assemblies; beat Merkel’s party in Mecklenburg election to the third place. Many within CDU and Ms. Merkel’s coalition partner Social democrats (SPD) think that the regret came too late.