AfD leader quits party caucus hours after German election breakthrough
Posts Tagged ‘AfD’
Germany: Far Right AfD Wins First Governing Post.
National Populism.
There is a view that the “populist revolt” is not over. Mathew Goodwin has recently written of a long-term conflict between what he calls the “New Elite” and the largely working class masses. His polemic largely focuses on the UK. Writing for the on-line journal of his national populist comrades Spiked, in April, he talked of the predominance of a “left-leaning elite graduate class”. In, Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics (2023) of Germany he says, “government policies have been systematically skewered in favour of highly educated and wealthy citizens, finding which have been replicated in many other Western democracies (Pages 112 – 113 ).
Critics have pointed to the self-serving character of these claims, designed to make everything that is discomforting to this nebulous ‘elite’ – that is anybody remotely liberal in authority – look like a real challenge to the ‘Establishment’. Goodwin talked of a “new realignment’ of British politics post-Brexit, and the “rise of populism” a new “cross class coalition” behind Boris Johnson’s short-lived triumph, able to tap into “underlying fissures over values, voice and virtue.” By coincidence these are clearly the conservative and national populist values the Professor of Politics in the elite University of Kent happens to share, as opposed to the ‘New left’ cultural liberalism on the pre-Boris Johnson Tory governments. (Page 62).
Goodwin and other critics of “liberal cosmopolitan and progressive values” not to mention immigration and diversity will no doubt be comforted by this election result in Germany. Will “conservatives, Brexiteers, workers, non-graduates and anybody else who dares to challenge or criticise the prevailing orthodoxy” be able to replicate the result in the UK? Polling suggests that Reform UK and other far-right splinters are not doing well here. The search for what the highly educated academic calls “a radical alternative that will allow them to launch a revolt against the growing power of the new elite” goes on in this country. No doubt supporters of “Britain’s distinctive identity, traditions, culture and way of life”, or as the Germans would call it völkisch politics will take inspiration from the AfD
Germany: Far-right AfD wins first governing post
06/25/2023June 25, 2023 Deutsche Welle.
The populist AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) party has won a district council election for the first time with Robert Sesselmann elected in Sonneberg. This was despite all other parties urging their supporters to vote for the other candidate.
For the first time in Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has won a district council election, administrators announced on Sunday (25.6.2023).
Voters in the eastern German town of Sonneberg— located in former East Germany GDR — elected AfD candidate Robert Sesselmann at the expense of incumbent district administrator Jürgen Köpper of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
In the runoff election in the Thuringian district of Sonneberg, Sesselmann won 52.8% of the vote, earning him the necessary absolute majority, according to election officials.
The area of some 57,000 people is one of the smallest districts in Germany. Still, the AfD victory is a major breakthrough for the far-right party, whose Thuringia branch has been classified as far-right extremist by Germany’s domestic intelligence service. All mainstream parties regularly vow to not enter coalition governments with the AfD.
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The AfD win on Sunday is widely seen as a milestone for the far-right party, which is currently polling between 18% and 20% nationwide.
It has gained a wave of support as the centre-left federal coalition government of SPD with the environmentalist Greens and the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) is showing signs of infighting. Even with their rise, however, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is from the SPD, faces a bigger challenge from the right-leaning CDU. The conservative party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel is polling at just under 30%.
The AfD first entered the national parliament in 2017 after campaigning strongly against migration. More recently, the party has been criticising German support for Ukraine as Kyiv fights off the invasion from Russia.”
This result is already drawing comment internationally.
Libération notes the small size of the district council but says that some are already talking of a wider rejection of ‘elites’. Their report also draws attention to the extreme nature of local AfD. (En Allemagne, la minuscule victoire des identitaires de l’AfD en Thuringe fait trembler la classe politique.)
The Guardian, Far-right AfD wins local election in ‘watershed moment’ for German politics, underlines the latter theme: “The Thuringia branch of the anti-immigrant party has been classed as rightwing extremist by intelligence services. It is led by Björn Höcke, who is considered to be part of the AfD’s far right or völkisch wing, which was officially disbanded but is still widely believed to exist.”
In the British journal of the national conservatives, the Spectator, Anglo-German historian Katja Hoyer writes, “The nature and scale of the growing support for the AfD suggests people don’t flock to it due to a disregard for democracy but because they feel there is no other way to exercise their democratic right, to make their voices heard. “
Hoyer cites German voters support through a long list of ‘concerns’ ‘problems’ like crime . It’s precisely the AfD’s right-wing populism that is the attraction. Sigrid, a 65-year-old pensioner from the Berlin borough of Pankow said she was concerned about ‘mistakes in the country’s refugee policy’ and about a government ‘that doesn’t care about Germany.’ Most of all she is angry about what she perceives as state control. ‘They tell us how to live, which cars we should drive, what we should eat and how we should heat our homes.’ “
The writer is the author of this, ‘controversial’ book, “Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer review – the human face of the socialist state.“
German Elections and the AfD.
Turn left: Smash Nationalism!
Democracy at Stake: Germany’s Slide to the Right
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats lost massive support in Sunday’s parliamentary election while the right-wing populist performed better than expected. What happens now?
This year’s general election in Germany has been heralded as an epochal shift. Merkel’s “grand coalition,” pairing her conservatives with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), was voted out of office and the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) became Germany’s third-strongest party. In the search for reasons for the shift, the language of politics is a good place to start. The AfD professed to be clear and decisive, their language was explicit — and voters rewarded them for it. The chancellor, by contrast, sought to avoid discussions and to completely ignore major issues focused on by the populists: foreign migrants and German uneasiness. Merkel’s political style, which is characterized by avoiding clashes, was punished to the greatest possible degree.
And the center-left Social Democrats were unable to settle on a strategy early on — or at least they were unable to stick to the tactics they found late in the campaign. It was only after the election, at 6:05 p.m. on Sunday evening, that the disappointed SPD, no longer bound by the discipline of the campaign, finally managed to define what differentiates it from Merkel’s Christian Democrats — which was touchingly awkward. Because in democracies, after the election is too late.
It seems clear what will now happen: a coalition matching Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) with the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) and the Green Party — almost certainly under the leadership of a Merkel who suddenly seems shrunk and fainthearted, and whose days as her party’s leader no longer seem infinite. The only alternative would be new elections or — in a few weeks — a reversal on the part of the SPD. The party pledged on Sunday night that it would not be part of a coalition with Merkel going forward, and an about-face would be extremely damaging.
How should we look at this from the rest of Europe?
The success of the Alternative für Deutschland, (AfD) is the most immediately striking result.
International Viewpoint summarises this.
The AfD reached 12.6% of the votes compared to 4.7% in 2013 and becomes the 3rd force in the Bundestag with 94 deputies. Moreover, the AfD becomes the 1st party in Saxony with 27% of the votes against the CDU with 26.9%, and in general 1st force in the male electorate of the new Länder of East Germany. In Bavaria, the AfD comes in second place behind the CSU in many constituencies.
The AfD was able to take more than one million votes in the CDU / CSU, almost half a million in the SPD and almost 400,000 in the party Die Linke party, and mobilize more than one million of those who were not to go to the polls in 2013, in the framework of a participation of 76.2% of the electorate compared to 71.5% in 2013. Despite the great electoral success, the conflict reigns at the summit of the AfD after these elections: Frauke Petry, who obtained a direct mandate in Saxony, co-chair of the party with a more “moderate” profile than the first candidates of the party, Alexander Gauland and Alice Weidel, has just announced that it will not be part of the parliamentary fraction of the AfD to the new Bundestag. The words of Alexander Gauland announcing “to open the hunt against Merkel” and its fascistoid verbal provocations displeased her.
Many people will be wary of taring Germany with the far-right brush, particularly in view of the as large (UKIP) far-right vote recently in the UK, not to mention the Front National vote in the second round of the Presidential elections (Marine Le Pen, 10, 638, 475, 33,9%) this year. Not to mention a series of other countries’ far-right votes, from the Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie, in Belgium, 2014, , 1,366, o73, 20,3% to the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ, , 2013 958.29520,51 %40.
But Taz puts its finger on a major problem racism which it observes, the inherits and Afd is playing with. synthesise the ideas of the New Right and the Identity movement, the latter which has echoes across Europe. Die Erben des Rassismus. This is something all of us have to confront, from the fall-out in the UK from Brexit, and the ambiguous response of some on the left to freedom of movement, to the problems with confronting right-wing ‘populism’ elsewhere, the AfD does concern us.
We are not going to fight racism and extreme nationalism by playing another form of ‘identity politics’ against the AfD’s identity politics but only through movements based on universal emancipatory principles.
Bang on cue we hear this:
Germany’s new far-right party AfD says it will fight an ‘invasion of foreigners’ (Independent)
“One million people – foreigners – being brought into this country are taking away a piece of this country and we as AfD don’t want that,” Mr Gauland told the press conference.
“We say we don’t want to lose Germany to an invasion of foreigners from a different culture. Very simple.”
It is some consolation that the AfD is as rent with personality clashes and factionalism as UKIP.
Frauke Petry ‘drops bomb’ on rightwing nationalist party by announcing she will instead serve as independent MP.
The entry of the AfD into the Bundestag is already provoking protests.
https://twitter.com/chefreporterNRW/status/912011834026336261
Just now: Allemagne : des centaines de personnes manifestent contre l’entrée au Parlement des populistes
Yesterday:
Nigel Farage Boosts German Far-right AfD.
Farage with Beatrix von Storch.
Farage with another Friend, George Galloway.
Sky has just reported,
Nigel Farage given standing ovation at German far-right AfD election rally
Ahead of the German election on 24 September, Mr Farage said: “(I’m trying) to get a proper debate going in the biggest, richest and most important, powerful country in Europe about not just the shape of Brexit but perhaps even the shape of the European project to come.”
He urged Germans to “say to Brussels: look, the reason the Brits left is because you’re behaving so badly, you’re taking away so much of people’s freedom, liberty and democracy”.
Mr Farage said: “We managed to break it in the United Kingdom. At the moment Germany is at a point where it is very, very tough to break through.”
However he added: “I predict, in Germany, it will probably start in Bavaria.”
He said he was at the rally at the “personal invitation” of his fellow European Parliament member, the AfD’s Beatrix von Storch, the granddaughter of Hitler’s finance minister Lutz von Krosigk.
Polls currently put the Eurosceptic AfD on up to 11% of the vote, which would make it the largest opposition party if Mrs Merkel wins as expected and renews her coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Ms Von Storch – whose party is calling for a referendum on Germany’s EU membership – praised Mr Farage for “showing that doing the impossible is possible”.
The leaders of the anti-Islam have provoked controversy in the past by saying German border guards should open fire on illegal immigrants “if necessary”.
They have also dubbed Berlin’s Holocaust memorial a “monument of shame”.
The visit, to give support to fellow extreme-right Sovereigentists, has been widely reported in Germany.
Nigel Farage in BerlinMister Brexit besucht die AfD.
Deutschlandfunk (radio).
Nigel Farage sieht „eine große Verantwortung“ für die AfD die Welt.
Farage says, the AfD has a great responsibility.
Europa-Skeptiker treffen sich in Berlin Taz.
AfD-Frau Beatrix von Storch hat Nigel Farage nach Berlin eingeladen – um ein paar Gemeinsamkeiten zur Schau zu stellen. Taz.
That is, a few double act shows with the AfD leader have taken place.
The visit has not only been noticed in Germany.
Le Monde has just reported that Farage was strangely ‘indulgent’ towards Merkel, which raised a few eyebrows amongst his far-right friends.
Devant l’AfD, « Mr Brexit » dit trop de bien de Merkel
Invité à participer à un rassemblement de l’extrême droite allemande, Nigel Farage a tenu des propos indulgents vis-à-vis de la chancelière.
Invited to a meeting of the Gemran far right, Nigel Farage showed signs of understanding toward the Chancellor.
Tendance Coatesy 