So much for German politics being boring!

The last year has proven that stereotype wrong many times over, with the AfD’s elections and Merkel’s drawn-out coalition-building process. But the last few days have been especially dramatic: Horst Seehofer and his Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, are in an all-out revolt over the implementation of stricter refugee measures.

Seehofer and his party — along with some in the CDU and other parties — want to allow German states to turn back asylum-seekers at the border; Merkel, by contrast, says unilateral action will cause a domino effect across the Continent, and that Germany needs to wait and come up with a broader European solution. Should neither side back down, Monday could bring the downfall of Merkel’s government — and potentially even of Merkel herself.

Why now? There’s a simple answer: it’s election season in Bavaria, and the CSU is terrified of losing its absolute parliamentary majority because of the rising electoral strength of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). I had already been working on a piece about the CSU’s pre-election shift to the right, which combines a hardline immigration policy with an aggressive focus on Bavarian “identity” and “values,” so that reporting fit in well with what’s happening in Berlin: I spent some time in upper Franconia, the northern region of Bavaria, talking to local activists and watching Bavarian Premier Markus Söder pitch himself and his party to supporters.

Read my piece here, for Foreign Policy. I’ve got one or two other Germany things in the works, then will be heading further afield for a few weeks… more on that soon!