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 can'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.