German Far Right Seeks To Capitalise On Successes

Magdeburg, Germany, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th Jul, 2023 ) :Following a surge in popularity that has unsettled the political establishment, Germany's far-right AfD holds a congress Friday with its sights set on triumphs in European and state elections next year.

Some 600 members have gathered in Magdeburg -- a city in the former communist east where the party has strong support -- with anti-extremist groups staging demonstrations outside.

As the congress got underway, the AfD made clear its ambitions, with co-president Alice Weidel saying the party planned to push its own candidate for chancellor at national polls in 2025 for the first time.

The party is planning to debate its programme and candidates for the European elections in June 2024 over the two coming weekends.

Created in 2013 as an anti-euro outfit, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) morphed into an anti-Islam, anti-immigration party and capitalised on the refugee influx under then chancellor Angela Merkel.

In recent opinion polls, the AfD has come second at the national level, ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats and just behind the Conservatives, the main opposition.

They are benefiting from public discontent towards the current coalition, consisting of Scholz's centre-left SPD, the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats, as well discontent due to high inflation and immigration.

- Success in the East - Matthias Jung, from polling institute Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, told AFP the party is attracting a broad spectrum of discontented voters.

"They range from the young man armed with a baseball bat, who has a narrow worldview, to those on the extreme right, to someone with little interest in politics, annoyed by the government's current policies and who does not view the conservative opposition as a credible alternative." Andrea Roemmele, from Berlin's Hertie school of Governance, added: "The members of the German government spend their time arguing... while the AfD has left behind the (internal) quarrels that used to frighten its supporters." The AfD has been particularly successful in eastern Germany, where many feel they lost out from national reunification in 1990.

The AfD is already garnering about 30 per cent support in opinion polls in the east.

Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg states will hold votes for their regional parliaments in September 2024, and there is a chance that in at least one of the three legislatures, the AfD will win the most seats.

In the western states of Bavaria and Hesse, where regional elections will take place this October, the AfD has some support but is stagnating in the polls.