BERLIN – The alternative for Germany seems to be heading towards its strongest national result this month and presents its first candidate to direct the country. Even if it is very unlikely that he will soon take a share of power, it has become a factor that other politicians cannot ignore and have helped to shape Germany’s debate on migration.
The far -right party entered for the first time eight years ago, the national parliament of Germany when the arrival of a large number of migrants in the mid -2010s, and the reduction in reduction Migration remains its signature theme. But the party has proven to be able to exploit dissatisfaction with other problems: the distance of Germany of fossil fuels, restrictions during the pandemic of Covid-19 and support for Ukraine after the invasion of Large scale of Russia almost three years ago.
How did it start?
Alternative for Germany, or AFD, was founded in 2013 and initially focused on opposition to reunions for countries in difficulty in the debt crisis in the euro zone – measures which, then Chancellor Angela Merkel, described as “without alternative”. He was sometimes known as a “group of teachers”, a reference to leading personalities at the beginning, although it has already had a strong sequence of anti-establishing and right.
Over the years, AFD has become more radical and has repeatedly changed leaders. It is Merkel’s decision in 2015 to allow in a large number of migrants who overloaded him as a political force, and in the national elections of 2017, he won 12.6% of the votes to take place in the German parliament for the first time.
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Where is it now?
After returning to Parliament in 2021 with reduced support of 10.3%, AFD accumulated the force while the government of Center -Gauche of Chancellor Olaf Scholz struck a series of crises – part of its own manufacturing – And finally collapsed.
Germany saw a wave of demonstrations a year ago launched by a report that the right -wing extremists met to discuss the deportation of millions of immigrants, some of whom with German citizenship, and that the members of the ‘AFD were present.
But that did not cause damage to the long -term survey of AFD. He finished second in the European elections of Parliament in June and, in September, the most famous figure of his hardest wing on the right, Björn Höcke, won the first far -right victory during a state election In the post-Second World War Germany.
AFD is part of this election with renewed confidence and radical language. Alice Weidel, her first Chancellor candidate, adopted the term “remigration” while the party calls for large -scale deportations of people without legal right to be in Germany – a politically loaded word which was in the controversy of the ‘ last year.
AFD calls for the immediate lifting of sanctions against Russia and opposes arms deliveries to Ukraine. He wants Germany to reintroduce a national currency and that the European Union will be transformed into a “European nations” association “, although it does not explicitly advocate to leave the block of 27 nations.
The national intelligence agency of Germany has the party under observation for the presumed extremism on the right. AFD branches in three eastern states are “extremists on the right experienced”. AFD strongly opposes these evaluations and rejects any association with the Nazi past. Höcke called on two convictions for knowingly used a Nazi slogan during a political event.
Who supports it?
AFD has support through Germany and is represented in all the legislatures of the 16 of the 16 states, but the party is the strongest in the former communist and less prosperous East.
He has a unique ability to grasp on the questions “that the other parties did not manage with this clarity, with this intensity, with this radicalism and this emotivity,” said Wolfgang Schroeder, professor of political science at Berlin Social Science Center. “And in addition to that, it’s an internet party and from the start, I used the emotioned power of the Internet for its own communication – much better than all the other German parties together.”
This helped him to perform strongly among young voters during the recent regional elections. The party describes itself as an anti-establishment force at a moment of low confidence in politicians, sometimes rejecting the “old parties” as a “cartel”.
Schroeder described him as “something like an aircraft carrier for resentment and anger”. Other parties say they don’t work with it.
Who are his friends abroad?
The increase in AFD has coincided with that of far -right parties in many other European countries, including the Freedom Party of Austria and the National Rally in France, with which it has a lot of common ground. Weidel was in Budapest to visit Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Wednesday.
However, this is not part of the Patriots for Europe group of these parties to the European Parliament after a few tensions before the EU elections of last year. AFD was expelled from one of the group’s predecessors after its main candidate at the time, Maximilian Krah said that all Nazi men are not necessarily criminals. “”
The party found an enthusiastic supporter of billionaire Elon Musk, a close ally of the American president Donald Trump. Musk said that “only AFD can save Germany”. He organized a live cat on X with Weidel and appeared live by Video Link during an AFD campaign rally.
During this rally, Weidel swore to “make Germany again large” in an echo of the Slogan of the American president.
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–Kerstin Sopke contributed to this report.
