A lawmaker who has long been critical of Chancellor Angela Merkel's policies says she is leaving the German leader's conservative party, citing discontent over Merkel's approach to migrants. Erika Steinbach, 73, has been a lawmaker for Merkel's Christian Democratic Union since 1990. But the conservative hardliner has increasingly been at odds with the chancellor, who has steered her party toward the center. More broadly, she complained that in the CDU's program "the conservative element has been deliberately marginalized step by step, even stigmatized." Steinbach doesn't plan for now to join the nationalist Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which has gained in polls by attacking Merkel's migrant policies, Welt am Sonntag reported.

Source: ABC News January 14, 2017 17:56 UTC