(Bloomberg) -- Elections scheduled for Sept. 1 in two of Germany’s 16 states have focused attention on radical parties — one on the right and one on the left — that are both anti-immigration and pro-Russia, advocating an end to Germany’s military support for Ukraine. Polls suggest that together the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) could win about half of the votes in Saxony and Thuringia, regions that were part of formerly communist East Germany before the country was reunified in 1990. On Sept. 22, the same scenario could repeat itself in the election in Brandenburg, the eastern state that surrounds the federal capital Berlin.
What is the AfD? What does it stand for?
Founded in 2013 by economists and former politicians as a party that opposed the introduction of the euro as Europe’s common currency, the AfD gained momentum amid widespread discontent with the immigration policy of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her government opened the door to more than 1 million refugees in 2015 and 2016 during a crisis tied to Syria’s civil war. The AfD wants to deport all migrants who entered Germany illegally or have since broken other laws and to end the country’s asylum policy, which is inscribed in its constitution. Germany’s already heated debate over immigration was stoked by the death of three people in a knife attack in the city of Solingen Aug. 23; a Syrian man who had avoided deportation after a failed asylum application is in custody, accused of the killings and membership in a terrorist organization.
The AfD also wants Germany to lift economic sanctions on Russia, according to a 10-point program presented in September 2023 by the party’s two leaders, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla. The party proposes a referendum on ditching the euro and restoring Germany’s old currency. It questions whether climate change is caused by human activity and advocates stopping Germany’s transition to renewable energy.
The AfD has 77 of 733 seats in Germany’s parliament, making it the fifth-strongest party there. Since the most recent federal election in 2021, it has been one of the main beneficiaries of crumbling support for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party ruling coalition, which has fallen to a record low. In national polls, the AfD draws the support of around 18% of voters, more than Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats. Its strongest support is in the eastern states.
Is the AfD an extremist group?
Concerns have been repeatedly raised that the party is sympathetic to Nazism following controversial remarks by AfD officials and related investigations by German authorities into party representatives, some of its regional chapters and the AfD’s youth organization. A report by investigative media outlet Correctiv in January linked the AfD to a November meeting of right-wing activists near Berlin. According to Correctiv, the participants had discussed ideas that contained echoes of Nazi policies of the 1930s. The report triggered mass protests across Germany against far-right policies, and many protests specifically targeted the AfD. Weidel sought to downplay the report, but she dismissed one of her advisers who attended the meeting.
Bjoern Hoecke, the AfD’s candidate for premier in Thuringia, was fined €13,000 ($14,400) in May by a court in Halle for using the Nazi catchphrase “Alles für Deutschland” (meaning “everything for Germany”) at a party rally three years earlier. The term is covered by criminal laws banning Nazi symbols, the court said. It was used by the Sturmabteilung, a paramilitary group in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party in the 1920s and early 1930s. The judges rejected Hoecke’s claim that he hadn’t known about the phrase’s Nazi connection. Hoecke, a former history teacher, has a track record of controversial remarks. He called the Holocaust memorial in Berlin a “monument of shame.” A German court ruled in 2019 that he could legally be called a fascist.
Critics say that behind the scenes, the AfD is controlled by Hoecke and the party’s chapter in Thuringia, which, along with the Saxony branch, have been categorized as “right-wing extremist” by Germany’s domestic intelligence service. Weidel and Chrupalla reject claims that their party pursues radical policies and have described as smear campaigns allegations that the party embraces Nazism.
What is the BSW? What does it stand for?
The BSW was launched in January by former communist politician Sahra Wagenknecht after she split from the far-left party Die Linke. The BSW targets voters frustrated with the political mainstream. It offers an eclectic mix of socialism and nationalism, the latter spiced with strong anti-immigrant undertones. Wagenknecht has abandoned her earlier support for the nationalization of all German companies in favor of what she calls an “economy of reason” that would be state directed. The party wants to end all sanctions against Russia and resume importing natural gas from the country, which cut off supplies to its European neighbors to retaliate for sanctions.
What’s at stake in the elections?
Two radical, pro-Russian parties winning a majority in two German states would be a major blow to the country’s political establishment, especially to Scholz’s already shaky coalition ahead of the next federal election in just over a year. Polls suggest that the coalition — consisting of Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democratic Party — could together take only 10% of the vote in Saxony and Thuringia and could conceivably drop out of both regional parliaments completely.
Even if together they do win a majority, it’s very unlikely the AfD and BSW would form a coalition in one or both states, despite their alignment on immigration and Russia. Like every other political party, the BSW has ruled out participating in a coalition with the AfD. Still, if the AfD secures enough seats to form blocking minorities in the state parliaments, as expected, the governments that do form would have to reckon with it. Plus, victories in two of the AfD’s main regional strongholds would boost the party’s confidence to step up its political efforts on the federal level.
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