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Why are the far-right AfD doing so well in German polls?

The Alternative für Deutschland party reached a record high of 22 percent in new voter polls released on Wednesday. Dissatisfaction with the current German government is just part of the reason behind the party's success.

Published: 12 July 2023 17:28 CEST
A poster with the logo of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is displayed in the town of Abensberg in Bavaria in September, 2022.
A poster with the logo of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is displayed in the town of Abensberg in Bavaria.. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Nicolas Armer

If the federal election were held next Sunday, the latest polls indicate that the far-right AfD would be the second-strongest political force in the country.

The figures, published by research firm Ipsos on Wednesday, indicate that 22 percent of Germans would vote for the party, just behind the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) who topped the poll with 26 percent.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party, the centre-left SPD, polled below the AfD with 18 percent. The governing party has lost two percentage points since June. The other coalition parties – the Greens and FDP –  gained 14 and 7 percent of the poll votes respectively.

The high polling results for the AfD follow a string of recent successes for the party at the local level.

Hannes Loth recently made history by becoming the first-ever mayor from his party in Germany in the town of Raguhn-Jeßnitz in Saxony Anhalt, while the week before, another AfD candidate was elected district administrator in the Sonneberg district of Thuringia.

Both of these election victories were in states in the former east of Germany, where far-right sentiments seem to be more widespread than in the west of the country, according to a recent study by Leipzig University.

READ ALSO: ANALYSIS: Are far-right sentiments growing in eastern Germany?

Why are they doing so well?

According to the study by Leipzig University released last week, one of the reasons for the AfD’s popularity in the east of the country is the hangover effect from the fall of the Berlin Wall – which left many pining for the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and wanting a “strong hand” to lead the country. 

Another major factor is the current discontent with the coalition government. 

Earlier this week, it was revealed that dissatisfaction with the federal government has reached an unprecedented level, with more than two-thirds of Germans expressing their discontent with the coalition.

According to the survey conducted by the opinion research institute Insa for Bild am Sonntag, 70 percent of the population is currently dissatisfied with the work of the traffic light coalition – the lowest point since the beginning of the legislative period.

Even among supporters of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD party, only half reported being satisfied with the government, while FDP voters were equally as displeased as the general population (70 percent). Green Party supporters on the other hand demonstrated the highest level of satisfaction, with 56 percent expressing contentment with the government’s work.

READ ALSO: Germany’s beleaguered heating bill hit by embarrassing vote delay

But while the ongoing disputes within the traffic light coalition, particularly surrounding issues like the heating bill have certainly contributed to the declining support in recent surveys, according to Dr. Robert Grimm, Head of Political and Social Research at Ipsos, the reasons for the AfD’s ascent in the polls are “multifaceted”.

“The country is facing an economic imbalance, and there are no immediate solutions in sight for the concerns of the population – inflation, rising rents, falling real wages, the Ukraine conflict, and migration. Meanwhile, the Union does not offer a programmatic alternative nor does it stand united”, he said. 

He added that the ongoing troubles in the country’s Left Party are also leading to “further migration of votes to the AfD, especially in the East”. 

Is the AfD an extremist party?

As the record-high polling results for the AfD came out on Wednesday, so did the news that the Brandenburg faction of the party’s youth organisation – Junge Alternative (Young Alternative) – has been declared a “right-wing extremist endeavour” by the state’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Other branches of the party – including the highly radical wing known as Der Flügel – have previously been identified as extremist organisations. 

A participant of the AfD rally in Magedeburg wears a T-shirt which reads “Get your country back”. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Heiko Rebsch

A “confirmed extremist endeavour” is the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s highest category for a political organisation; when an endeavour is labelled a confirmed extremist one, the thresholds for wiretapping telephone conversations or the use of informants are much lower than in other cases. 

READ ALSO: Why did east Germans vote for far-right AfD in historic election?

Announcing the Court’s decision, Jörg Müller, head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution said that it had “repeatedly identified violations of the liberal democratic order” by the Young Alternative, and that the organisation deliberately violates central principles of human dignity and fuels prejudices and resentments against “foreigners,” while diminishing individuals with a migration background as “second-class Germans”.

However, the AfD in Brandenburg has come out in fierce defence of its youth faction.

The chairwoman of the Brandenburg AfD, Birgit Bessin, said in a statement: “The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution does not protect the constitution; it merely safeguards the government and is increasingly being abused as a tool for left-green power preservation.”

She said that the fear of “diminishing power” following the AfD’s recent success has triggered “one panic attack after another” in the government.

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CLIMATE CRISIS

INTERVIEW: ‘Failed climate policies are fuelling far-right politics in Germany’

Alt-right political parties tend to oppose environmental protections, but is there a connection between their political success and climate policy failures? Author and thought-leader Sandrine Dixson-Declève explains why Germany may be having a ‘1930s moment’, and why the next elections are gravely important.

Published: 17 May 2024 15:24 CEST
INTERVIEW: 'Failed climate policies are fuelling far-right politics in Germany'

It’s understood that far-right and populist political parties tend to either downplay the realities of climate change, or block progressive policies that would try to mitigate its impacts. But the link between failed climate policies and the recent rise of populist parties is rarely addressed.

Speaking as a panellist at the Green Tech Festival in Berlin on Thursday, climate policy thought-leader Sandrine Dixson-Declève voiced concern that poor climate and economic policies are fuelling the popularity of far-right politics in Germany and across Europe. 

Co-president of the Club of Rome, Dixson-Declève works to promote policies that she believes would help secure a sustainable future for humanity. Such policies are laid out in the book Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity, that she co-authored.

The Local spoke with Sandrine Dixson-Declève about Germany’s climate policy failures, and why she thinks the upcoming European elections are of the utmost importance.

The shortcomings of Germany’s ‘Energiewende’ had serious political consequences

Having been a contributor and advisor to Germany’s Energiewende (energy transition), Dixson-Declève has followed German politics and environmental policy for years.

“I believe that one of the biggest mistakes was that we politicised energy policy in Germany from the outset,” she told The Local, adding, “Merkel actually accepted the big green push to pull out of nuclear, which actually created a big mess.”

Germany’s anti-nuclear energy movement dates back to the 19070s, and led to the foundation of the Green party. Under Merkel’s leadership, a plan was adopted to phase out nuclear power with the last three nuclear power plants taken offline in 2023.

But losing nuclear power as an energy source came with some serious consequences.

“The first big mess was the continued burning of coal,” Dixson-Declève explained. “The second big mess was Nord Stream 2, and that led to the invasion of Ukraine…because it gave Putin power.”

Still, she wouldn’t suggest that Germany try to revive its nuclear power now: “I believe that Germany needs to really think through the next steps.”

READ ALSO: ‘Nuclear power is a dead horse in Germany’: Scholz rejects reopening plants 

Protestors run past riot police

A wave of protestors break through police lines at Lützerath. Open pit coal mining in west Germany destroyed most of the Hambach Forest, as well as dozens of villages such as Lützerath. At both sites massive citizen protests were met with brutal police evictions. Photo by Paul Krantz.

Energy efficiency is the missing piece to Germany’s climate plans

How to build up renewable energy infrastructure is at the centre of most discourse around curbing fossil fuel use, but using the energy we have more efficiently arguably deserves more immediate attention.

“The other missing link, which no one talks about, is energy efficiency,” Dixson-Declève said. “Actually the best energy is the energy you don’t use. That is unsexy, and that is why energy efficiency hasn’t been taken up the way it should have been since 2010.”

While working on climate and energy plans in 2010, she says she came across a study that said Europe could wean itself off of Russian gas just by putting energy efficiency requirements in place for buildings.

In 2022 the European Commission finally began to take this idea seriously when Germany and Europe suddenly needed to replace Russian gas imports, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Another massive energy saver that has been politicised for all the wrong reasons in Germany is heat pumps.

According to Eurostat data, about half of all energy consumed in the EU is used for heating and cooling, and most of that energy comes from fossil fuels. Heat pumps are significantly more efficient than boilers and allow for greater use of renewable energy sources.

But when Economy Minister Robert Habeck led an effort to promote heat pumps by banning new fossil-powered heating systems, conservative and far-right parties jumped on the issue as if it were an attack on personal freedoms. 

“As environmentalists, we need to get better at translating the environmental narrative into something that resonates with people,” said Dixson-Declève. 

READ ALSO: Reader question – How do I install a heat pump in my German property?

A unified coalition government that is serious about climate protections might have better communicated to people that heat pumps would ultimately save them money: “They should have been enabled in a way that truly assisted people in getting the heat that they needed in an affordable way at the right time.”

‘I am very scared we are in a 1930s moment’

Whereas the coalition government has largely failed to communicate to voters how environmental policies will improve their lives and save them money, conservative and far-right parties have done extremely well at hijacking the narrative. 

The European People’s Party (EPP – the EU’s largest conservative party), for example, is particularly adept at using citizens’ economic concerns to block environmental policies.

Having analysed the EPP’s manifestos, Dixson-Declève notes that they acknowledge the need to mitigate climate change, but say that protections cannot cost. 

“I think the EPP has done a very good job both of putting in fear of the greens, [as if] they’re only going to think about green climate policies and not about social policies [whereas] we’re here to think about you.”

Sandrine Dixson-Declève with Earth for All

Sandrine Dixson-Declève holds up a copy of the book ‘Earth for All’ alongside two of the book’s co-authors. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Wolfgang Kumm

Germany’s far-right parties tend to use similar messaging to try and convince voters that they will better improve the lives of citizens than the current coalition parties have. 

READ ALSO: Why are the far-right AfD doing so well in German polls?

Nearly 100 years ago, the National Socialist (Nazi) party succeeded in drumming up major support along similar lines.

Speaking as a panellist at Berlin’s Green Tech Festival, when asked how she thought European politicians were doing on climate issues, Dixson-Declève described them as deer in the headlights, adding, “I am very scared we are in a 1930s moment”.

“I think that in the 1930s we didn’t see Hitler coming, we didn’t read the tea leaves,” she told The Local, adding that in the present moment, “people are suffering. When people suffer, they look to anything, any message that’s going to make them feel like that next leader is going to help them.” 

She also suggests that we can’t count on the youth vote to save us, citing Argentina and Portugal as two places where young voters have actually pushed politics to the right recently.

READ ALSO: A fight for the youth vote: Are German politicians social media savvy enough?

“This is a tipping moment politically, and if we’re not careful, it could explode in our faces,” said Dixson-Declève. “We need to get as many people to vote this year [as possible]. It’s an absolutely fundamental vote, alongside the United States, in order to make sure that we don’t slide to the right across Europe.”

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