BERLIN, June 25 (Reuters) - A far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) candidate won a vote on Sunday to become a district leader in Europe’s biggest economy for the first time, a breakthrough for the party which has hit record highs in national polls.
The 10-year old AfD, with which Germany’s mainstream parties officially refuse to cooperate due to its radical views, won a run-off vote in the Sonneberg district in the eastern state of Thuringia with its candidate garnering 52.8% of the vote.
It is the latest success for the party which is riding a wave of popular discontent with Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s awkward coalition with the Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) which is dogged by infighting over policy and the budget.
Polling at 19%-20%, behind the opposition conservatives, the AfD is tapping into voter fears about recession, migration and the green transition, say analysts. It even plans to nominate a chancellor candidate in the 2025 federal election.
While far-right parties have gained ground around Europe, the strength of the AfD is particularly sensitive in Germany due to the country’s Nazi past.
The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, expressed deep shock.
“This is a watershed that this country’s democratic political forces cannot simply accept,” he told RND media.
Particularly strong in the former Communist East, polls suggest the party may win three eastern state votes next year.
A clear victory for the AfD’s Robert Sesselmann in the district, which has a population of only around 56,000 people, sends a signal to Berlin, say analysts, especially as all other parties in Sonneberg joined forces in a front against him.
Sesselmann was forced into a run-off against a conservative candidate after a vote two weeks ago. The conservative candidate won 47.2% on Sunday.
The party opposes economic sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine war and disputes that human activity is a cause of climate change.
The domestic intelligence agency said this month that far-right extremism posed the biggest threat to democracy in Germany and warned voters about backing the AfD.
Formed a decade ago as an anti-euro party, its popularity surged after the 2015 migrant crisis and it entered parliament in 2017, becoming the official opposition. Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama
Now the governmental situation plays into their hands. It’s the first government that consists of three parties that in parts have diametrically opposed ideologies and policies. It was clear from the beginning that there would be a lot of friction happening. They openly argue about urgent topics, most recently about a proposed heating-reform, now passing over to a debate about the EU migration reform. While you can dislike aspects of the form of these debates, in my opinion they are, in essence, a sign of a healthy democratic culture. But the problem is that the former mentioned morons are unsettled by these debates and see them as a sign of a weak government. So what they do, instead of trying to understand what is happening or trying to take part in shaping these debates, is that they succumb to their feeling of fear and look for someone who paints themselves as a strong leader and give them a feeling of stability, paving the path for the group mentioned in 2.
Things like inflation and the Ukraine war of course don’t contribute to the confidence of the population with their governments, but the morons fail to grasp that these things aren’t in full control of a single government, so they spout shit like “the greens made gas expensive” or “the greens keep the Ukraine war going with weapon deliveries”. It’s always the greens, because they seem to be the only party that is far enough away from the AfD ideologically to not have significant amounts of voters moving over, so they are perfect for negative projection.
*This is also the reason why neither the “collective movement” approach nor the “big tent” approach work for the left: There are too many factions who believe their doctrine is the only relevant truth and they are neither able to make compromises or subordinate their faction under another one. This can be seen as a good thing democracy-wise, but it’s a shit precondition if you need to prevent fascism.