Despite regular scandals over its apologia for Nazism, Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) party is on-track for its best ever election result at next weekend’s federal elections.
On the polls, the AfD was already the clear leader in the economically depressed eastern half of Germany since the latter half of 2024. Its vote stands at about 30-32% of the total in the east.
In former West Germany, the AfD reached 20% of votes in January polling. The centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) are polling at 30-35%.
Far-right parties often score higher in elections than polls. They are also continuing to benefit from the shift in Elon Musk’s political sentiments, as reflected in the state of the “for-you” feed of Twitter/X.
Additionally, a spate of recent terror attacks is likely to push the anti-immigration vote still higher.
Using his car, a Saudi national rammed into crowds at the Magdeburg Christmas market in December. Last month an Afghan asylum seeker attacked a childcare playgroup in a Bavarian park with a knife, killing the carer and one child and wounding two more.
Then came yesterday’s Munich car-ramming attack by an Afghan asylum seeker. The man’s asylum application was rejected in 2016, but his deportation was indefinitely suspended.
Previously, an Afghan asylee carried out a knife attack on an anti-Islam protest in May 2024 (1 dead, 6 injured). In August, a Syrian asylum seeker stabbed attendees of the Festival of Diversity event in Solingen (3 dead, 8 injured). The Solingen attacker’s asylum application had also been rejected. The same week, a local AfD candidate in Solingen was stabbed outside the city.
Anti-immigrant sentiment prompted the centre-right CDU to vote with the AfD on a new migration bill in January. The vote was a landmark political moment, in that it broke the long-standing “firewall” of established parties against voting with the AfD.
This does not mean the CDU will necessarily take the further step of entering a coalition with the AfD. But in the event of a CDU victory, they will certainly try to blackmail the centre-left and Greens into a coalition with the threat of making such a move.
Ironically, the AfD has arguably benefited electorally from this long-standing parliamentary “firewall”. Unlike Spain’s Vox, for example, the firewall means that they are yet to be discredited, in the radical mindset, by association with the “establishment” political parties.
An AfD win or CDU-AfD coalition would align Germany with continental trends. The right is currently in government in Italy, the Netherlands and Hungary. EU parliamentary elections earlier this year saw the far-right poll first in Austria and France as well.
While Australians are mostly happy with immigration, more than 70% of Europeans were dissatisfied with EU migration policies as of May 2024.
Incidentally, one region where the far-right has not made in-roads is Scandinavia. This could be because its centre-left parties have adopted anti-migration policies, which includes Denmark paying Syrian refugees to leave after the end of the Syrian civil war.
Thumbnail image courtesy of @ballonandon via Unsplash.
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