The poor showing by Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party in the recent state elections may be at least partially responsible for a decision by the government to return home half the refugees from Afghanistan. 

The Merkel government wants to make a deal with Kabul to send back 40,000 of the 80,000 refugees - most of whom are unmarried males whose asylum applications were rejected 3 times.

Daily Caller:

The deportations would not include women and children — the vast majority of refugees are men — but would include those whose asylum applications have already been rejected three times. Some of the “deportations” would include refugees who agree to return willingly, and the government plans to use chartered flights to return the refugees.

Voters delivered a stunning rebuke in a recent election to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has firmly stood by her policy of embracing more and more refugees. Her party, the Christian Democratic Union, suffered its worst defeat ever at the polls, and fell to third behind a nationalist party with a platform of limiting refugee intake.

Now candidates from a sister party, the Christian Social Union, are vowing not to back Merkel for a fourth term. Although Merkel has acknowledged her refugee policies have been a source of trouble for the country, she is adamant that the lack of support is based on flawed implementation rather than the principal behind the policies.

“There are political issues that one can see coming but don’t really register with people at that certain moment,” Merkel said in a recent interview, blaming failure to act sooner for the unrest regarding the refugees. “In Germany we ignored both the problem for too long and blocked out the need to find a pan-European solution.”

Merkel is delusional if she thinks that the problem was in implementing her polciies rather than the policies themselves. The rise of the nationalist AfD party should tell her that the political opposition is to her "open door" refugee policy that is changing the character of her country while endangering citizens by allowing up to 500 terrorists from ISIS to enter Germany. 

Her coalition partner, the CSU, have no such delusions. They see Merkel's refugee policy as a sure loser in next year's national elections and will either force her to change or leave the coalition. 

Returning Afghan refugees is a small step. Merkel will have to do a lot more if she expects success at the polls next year.