Alternative for Germany far-right group on the verge of state election success
Category: News & Politics
Via: perrie-halpern • one month ago • 12 commentsBy: Carlo Angerer and Henry Austin
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
MUNICH — In the heart of what was once communist East Germany, a far-right group that for some has evoked the country's Nazi past may be on the verge of becoming the strongest party for the first time in a state election.
As the country's central governing coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz grapples with Russia's war with Ukraine, slow economic growth, the transition to green energy and a renewed debate about migration sparked by a recent terror attack, the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, an anti-immigration, nationalist party which denies human-caused climate change, is looking to take advantage at a local level.
In the east German states of Saxony and Thuringia, home to around 4.1 million and 2.1 million people respectively, the party, which is under monitoring by the country's domestic intelligence agency for suspected extremism, is ahead in several polls and expected to win about 30% of Sunday's vote.
With other smaller populist parties like the left-wing Bundnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) or Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance are also expected to make gains, so the prospects look grim for Scholz's center-left Social Democrats, the environmentalist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats, who make up Germany's federal government, although the former two parties are the junior partners in both outgoing regional governments. The mainstream opposition Christian Democratic Union also could also lose seats.
People were picking populists to express their disappointment with the governing parties, Sudha David-Wilp, regional director of the German Marshall Fund's Berlin office, told NBC News on Thursday. "They're not happy about Berlin's support of Ukraine. They're also unhappy about the economic transformation that's taking place," she said.
She added that it was "more difficult to form viable coalitions." The traditional German model of two major parties and a smaller kingmaker party is over, she said, adding that many governing coalitions including the current one led by Scholz now consist of three parties.
But she said it was "hard then when it comes to writing a coalition agreement and coming to a consensus on things, because each party is also trying to, of course, maintain its identity and also cater to its base."
Set up in April 2013 as a movement against the euro currency, the AfD shifted its focus to Islam and immigration and has grown in popularity at both local and national levels ever since, particularly in the former East Germany, the former communist half of the country which had strong ties to the then-Soviet Union; polling has shown there is more skepticism about NATO and Germany's support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
In June's European Parliament elections, the party finished second in Germany, despite a series of scandals engulfing the party in the lead-up to the vote.
The party's top candidate Maximilian Krah was forced to withdraw from campaigning in May after telling an Italian newspaper that the SS, the Nazis' main paramilitary force, were "not all criminals."
One of his aides was also charged with spying for China and another candidate faced allegations of receiving bribes from a pro-Russian news portal.
But the party nonetheless gained ground, particularly among younger voters.
"The No. 1 issue is, of course, the migration topic," David-Wilp said.
More than 1 million people benefited from then-Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to open Germany's doors to asylum-seekers in 2015, making the country by far the largest European destination for refugees. But the issue of integration is a thorny one and the AfD harnessed hostility toward foreigners as it rose from the fringes.
Immigration became an even hotter issue after three people were killed and eight wounded in a knife attack in the city of Solingen last week, for which the Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility.
The suspect is a 26-year-old Syrian citizen,identified by the German federal prosecutor's office as "Issa Al H," had applied and failed to gain asylum in Germany.
It later emerged that he could have been deported to Bulgaria where he was first registered as an asylum-seeker, but authorities failed to do so, a fact that was seized upon by the AfD.
Alternative for Germany party candidate Bjoern Hoecke campaigning earlier this month.Markus Schreiber / AP file
Bjorn Hocke, the party's leader in Thuringia, posted on his Facebook page that "the "multicultural experiment" that has been forced upon the Germans must be stopped." It is accompanied by the illustration of a bloody knife through the words diversity and Solingen.
Hocke was fined twice this year by German courts for using the Nazi-era slogan "Everything for Germany" at two AfD events in recent years. He has appealed the rulings.
In an apparent bid to prevent his rivals from seizing the initiative on the issue, Scholz appeared to swing rightward at a campaign event Tuesday in the Thuringian city of Jena.
"Those who commit serious crimes should also be deported to countries like Afghanistan and Syria," he said. Anyone who does such things and who brings violence and aggression into our society has forfeited the right to protection in this country and must accept that we will use all means and levers to bring them back."
On Friday, the German government announced that 28 Afghan nationals with criminal convictions had been flown to Afghanistan. It was the first such flight since the Taliban retook power there three years ago.
Scholz's comments were not greeted warmly by everyone however.
Anna-Lena Metz, a pro-democracy activist in Thuringia, said Thursday that she did not believe centrist parties would be well served if they take over the narrative from right-wing parties.
"Deportations are never a solution, and we will not be able to deport the danger potential. We need a much stronger focus on social policy that includes everyone," she said.
Metz, a spokesperson for the anti-right-wing activist groupAuf die Platze Bundnis Erfurt,was one of the organizers of an anti-right-wing demonstration Sunday in Thuringia's state capital, Erfurt, that was attended by thousands of people.
It was similar to rallies attended by hundreds of thousands of people in cities across Germany earlier this year, after reports from the investigative news website Correctiv about a meeting of right-wing extremists, including AfD party members, in the city of Potsdam, where the deportation of people of foreign origin was discussed.
While those rallies and Sunday's passed off peacefully, at a campaign rally in Thuringia on Thursday, a man sprayed pink at BSW's leader Sahra Wagenknecht.
Were the AfD to win, it would be a potent signal for the party ahead of next year's national election. But it is unclear whether any other party would be prepared to form a coalition with it to put it in power.
But Metz pointed out that many voters are still undecided ahead of Sunday's ballot.
"At the end of the day, we are all aware that we cannot persuade convinced AfD voters to turn away from the AfD; on the contrary, we really want to reach out to people who are unsure but who still value a diverse and open society, who for some reason have existential fears that can be taken away from them and that is more our goal," she said.
"We can do all this together and we can do it without right-wing populism."
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Immigration has become a hot issue in France as well as Germany, as it has not only in other European nations but now even Canada is becoming more stringent. Apparently the USA is not alone concerning it..
The USA has a political party which is anti-illegal immigration. Neither US political party is anti-immigration.
Question: Is the Afd actually against the EU deciding Germany's immigration policy, rather than immigration per se.
How does it make them "far right?"
Germany didn't have "immigration" per se. They took in refugees. This was a legal act. The party in question uses slogans like "Everything for Germany", which is a Nazi slogan, and hence why they are considered far right.
People need to take into consideration that this is coming from what was E Germany, which never had to come to terms with WWII, and where the Nazi party is still considered very acceptable by some.
It looks like they are at wit's end with it:
"In October last year, Germany reintroduced checks at its borders with the Czech Republic , Poland, Switzerland and Austria. While this temporary measure was meant to last until June, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community announced in May it would be extended until the winter.
Germany's Interior Minister Nancy Fäser has insisted these will remain in place until irregular migration starts to "noticeably" decrease.
A recent report by the federal police shows that the number of illegal migrants travelling through Germany has reached levels last seen in 2016, during a refugee crisis that gripped Europe."
Germany raises prospects of major Schengen Zone change | World | News | Express.co.uk
People need to take into consideration that this is coming from what was E Germany, which never had to come to terms with WWII,
I don't know what you mean by not coming to terms with WWII. East Germany was under Soviet control right up until the 1980's and the Germans there paid dearly for WWII:
"East Germans experienced repression; faced imprisonment for any number of crimes against the state, including attempting to flee to the West; and lived in the shadow of one of the most extensive surveillance apparatuses of the time.
They had fewer consumer goods than their West German counterparts, and obviously, experienced enormous challenges if they wished to travel outside of the Soviet bloc. At the same time, East Germans went about their lives.
They attended school, they went to work, they had families, they celebrated birthdays and weddings. East Germans lived in a restricted societal and political system, but they were humans—not automatons."
What Happened in East Germany? - Perspectives - College of Humanites - The University of Utah
Not to mention the fact that a lot of what was eastern Germany is now Poland.
You may be right about the AFD. Maybe the party in question is outside of the norm, but that doesn't mean they can't be right on an issue. No country can absorb the massive migration from the third world and middle east for very long.
I think it has all been a disaster for Europe and btw, in my opinion, it was the Muslim vote that saved the Macron government in France. It was what I consider a defeat for the French people.
The Scandinavian countries used to welcome immigrants. And after they arrived they received numerous benefits from the state. After all they are Socialist countries (To various degrees)..
But for a while now that has changed.
Sweden now has the highest rate of gang killings in Europe. It also has the lowest average age of serious offenders, with children being accused of murder. Some urban areas are now off limits to real law enforcement.
Sweden has been unmasked as a white, racist, entitled country, not the utopia that we progressives believed in.
And Malmo is a perfect example of that.
Immigration and taking in refugees and giving them all kinds of freebies was fine for several European countries until they started to get overrun with them. The spigot, once opened, is very difficult to shut again.
Sadly, we still haven't learned that unfortunate lesson here in the US, where certain states and municipalities want them to have driver's licenses (readymade government ID), giving them all kinds of assistance, and putting them in homes they can't afford, like Newsome and others want to do in California.
A countries citizens must come before any outsiders
Not only am I grateful that both my parents were individually made welcome in Canada where they met and married, but that I have been welcomed and so well treated by everyone here in China, notwithstanding that I am and will always be an "outsider" here.
I think you would be an asset to any country
Thank you. That is very kind, and now I'm going to eat lunch.