Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

Germany’s far-right AfD hopes for first state election wins

Germany is bracing for what could be the first outright election victories for the far-right AfD party on Sunday, when voters in two states in the ex-communist east go to the polls.

Published: 29 August 2019 08:34 CEST
Germany's far-right AfD hopes for first state election wins
AfD supporters at a campaign rally in Oranienburg, Brandenburg. Photo: DPA

Even strong vote results, coming 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, would badly rattle Chancellor Angela Merkel's fragile coalition government.

The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany has polled strongly in both Brandenburg and Saxony states, part of its eastern electoral heartland.

In Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin, the AfD has been polling at around 21 percent, neck and neck with the governing Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Brandenburg's SPD state premier Dietmar Woidke has voiced hope that the vote winner will not be “a party that stands for exclusion, hatred and agitation”.

READ ALSO: Brandenburg elections – in east German rust belt, economic fears boost far right

In Saxony, home to the city of Dresden, the AfD has slipped back somewhat to poll at 25 percent, behind the 29 percent for Merkel's centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU).

A third election will be held on October 27th in the eastern state of Thuringia.

The AfD, formed six years ago as a eurosceptic group, now focuses mainly on fear and anger over Germany's mass migrant influx since 2015.

It already has seats in all 16 German state assemblies and the national and European parliaments.

Eastern Germany is home to several of the AfD's most extremist leaders, among them Björn Höcke, who has labelled Berlin's Holocaust memorial a “monument of shame”, and his close ally Andreas Kalbitz, the top candidate in Brandenburg.

The chancellor, who also grew up in the east, has avoided campaigning ahead of Sunday's polls in the region, where she has in the past faced harsh abuse.

'Hostile takeover'

Aside from railing against Islam and immigrants, the AfD has capitalized on lingering resentment since the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, as The Local has reported.

READ ALSO: Could the far-right AfD really win in upcoming German state elections?

“Let's complete the Wende” (turnaround), it has vowed, referring to the 1989 peaceful revolution that ended the Soviet-allied one-party state.

Those turbulent changes brought freedom and national reunification in 1990 but also painful factory closures, mass layoffs and an exodus of young people.

The AfD has long co-opted the former pro-democracy chant “We are the people” and turned it against what it labels the “Merkel regime”.

Thomas Kliche, political psychologist at the University of Magdeburg-Stendal, said that “in economic terms, the East Germans in fact experienced a hostile takeover”.

“Every year thousands of doctors and teachers migrate to the West where they earn more… Many East Germans have completely lost confidence in social justice.”

Sunday's election results could reverberate across German politics.

For Merkel, an election debacle for either her CDU or junior coalition partner the SPD would pose another threat to their uneasy coalition.

The veteran leader has already pledged to step down when her current term ends in 2021, but regional election upsets could speed up her government's demise.

Poor results for the SPD, already demoralized by a string of election defeats, would boost internal critics who want the party to leave Merkel's government quickly.

READ ALSO: Chemnitz: Portrait of a city shaken by anti-foreigner riots

 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

GERMANY AND RUSSIA

Germany, Czech Republic accuse Russia of cyberattacks

Germany and the Czech Republic on Friday blamed Russia for a series of recent cyberattacks, prompting the European Union to warn Moscow of consequences over its "malicious behaviour in cyberspace".

Published: 4 May 2024 10:29 CEST
Germany, Czech Republic accuse Russia of cyberattacks

The accusations come at a time of strained relations between Moscow and the West following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the European Union’s support for Kyiv.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said a newly concluded government investigation found that a cyberattack targeting members of the Social Democratic Party had been carried out by a group known as APT28.

APT28 “is steered by the military intelligence service of Russia”, Baerbock told reporters during a visit to Australia.

“In other words, it was a state-sponsored Russian cyberattack on Germany and this is absolutely intolerable and unacceptable and will have consequences.”

APT28, also known as Fancy Bear, has been accused of dozens of cyberattacks in countries around the world. Russia denies being behind such actions.

The hacking attack on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD party was made public last year. Hackers exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook to compromise e-mail accounts, according to Berlin.

Berlin on Friday summoned the acting charge d’affaires of the Russian embassy over the incident.

The Russian embassy in Germany said its envoy “categorically rejected the accusations that Russian state structures were involved in the given incident… as unsubstantiated and groundless”.

Arms, aerospace targeted: Berlin 

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the cyber campaign was orchestrated by Russia’s military intelligence service GRU and began in 2022. It also targeted German companies in the armaments and aerospace sectors, she said.

Such cyberattacks are “a threat to our democracy, national security and our free societies”, she told a joint news conference in Prague with her Czech counterpart Vit Rakusan.

“We are calling on Russia again to stop these activities,” Faeser added.

Czech government officials said some of its state institutions had also been the target of cyberattacks blamed on APT28, again by exploiting a weakness in Microsoft Outlook in 2023.

Czech Interior Minister Rakusan said his country’s infrastructure had recently experienced “higher dozens” of such attacks.

“The Czech Republic is a target. In the long term, it has been perceived by the Russian Federation as an enemy state,” he told reporters.

EU, NATO condemnation

The German and Czech findings triggered strong condemnation from the European Union.

“The malicious cyber campaign shows Russia’s continuous pattern of irresponsible behaviour in cyberspace, by targeting democratic institutions, government entities and critical infrastructure providers across the European Union and beyond,” EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said.

The EU would “make use of the full spectrum of measures to prevent, deter and respond to Russia’s malicious behaviour in cyberspace”, he added.

State institutions, agencies and entities in other member states including in Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia and Sweden had been targeted by APT28 in the past, the statement added.

The latest accusations come a day after NATO expressed “deep concern” over Russia’s “hybrid actions” including disinformation, sabotage and cyber interference.

The row also comes as millions of Europeans prepare to go to the polls for the European Parliament elections in June, and concerns about foreign meddling are running high.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky told AFP that “pointing a finger publicly at a specific attacker is an important tool to protect national interests”.

One of the most high-profile incidents so far blamed on Fancy Bear was a cyberattack in 2015 that paralysed the computer network of the German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. It forced the entire institution offline for days while it was fixed.

In 2020, the EU imposed sanctions on individuals and entities linked to the APT28 group over the incident.

SHOW COMMENTS