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POLITICS

German far-right’s popularity won’t last, says Scholz

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday downplayed the recent surge in popularity of the far-right AfD, saying he didn't expect the party to make any significant gains at the next general election.

Published: 14 July 2023 15:04 CEST
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gestures as he addresses a summer press conference on domestic policy and diplomacy in Berlin on July 14, 2023.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says German support for Ukraine must continue, even before an uncertain EU summit in Brussels. (Photo by Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP)

Support for the anti-immigration, climate-sceptic AfD has climbed to a record high of 18-20 percent in the latest opinion polls, ahead of Scholz’s own Social Democrats.

The surge has been driven by public discontent with Scholz’s bickering three-party coalition, concerns about immigration, the increased cost of living and government plans to phase out gas and oil heating.

Nevertheless, Scholz said he didn’t expect the AfD’s good fortune in the polls to last.

“I’m quite confident that the AfD won’t perform very differently at the next parliamentary elections (in 2025) than it did at the last,” Scholz said at his annual summer press conference.

The AfD took around 10 percent of the vote at the 2021 elections.

The decade-old party stunned the political establishment when it scored nearly 13 percent in 2017, entering the national parliament for the first time after capitalising on anger over an influx of refugees.

Scholz said right-wing populism was on the rise in a number of European countries, and stressed that the “large majority” of Germans backed democratic parties.

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

A man holds a heart with the slogan "Our country first!" during a rally of the AfD in Thuringia in October, 2022.

A man holds a heart with the slogan “Our country first!” during a rally of the AfD in Thuringia in October, 2022. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Martin Schutt

The best way to counter the Alternative for Germany (AfD) was to “give citizens sufficient reasons to believe in a good future”, Scholz said.

Government measures to support households and companies through the energy transition, new legislation to attract foreign skilled workers and efforts to limit “irregular migration” would all help “to strengthen the cohesion of our society”, he added.

Key gains for AfD

Scholz also criticised the infighting that has dogged his coalition, particularly over contentious legislation about new heating systems.

“It’s no secret that there was a loud discussion, neither I nor anyone else liked it,” Scholz told reporters in Berlin.

An opinion poll for public broadcaster ZDF on Friday put support for the AfD at a fresh high of 20 percent, behind the opposition conservative CDU/CSU with 27 percent.

Scholz’s SPD came third at 17 percent, followed by his coalition partners the Greens at 16 percent and the pro-business FDP with seven percent.

To the alarm of mainstream parties, the AfD recently notched up two high-profile victories in local-level elections.

It won its first-ever district administrator in the central state of Thuringia, and its first full-time town mayor in the eastern region of Saxony-Anhalt.

Both states are holding regional elections next year, with the AfD hoping to score major breakthroughs.

READ ALSO: Why the far-right AfD’s victory in an east German district is so significant

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POLITICS

Clashes erupt as far-right AfD states aim to govern Germany

Two police officers were hospitalised Saturday after clashes with hooded protesters outside the congress of Germany's far-right AfD, as the party met weeks after its record EU election result.

Published: 30 June 2024 08:32 CEST
Clashes erupt as far-right AfD states aim to govern Germany

About 1,000 police were deployed in the western city of Essen, where demonstration organisers said 50,000 protestors marched towards the congress. The police have not yet provided figures.

“We want to govern, first in the east (of Germany), then in the west, then at federal level,” Tino Chrupalla, co-president of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), told around 600 delegates of the two-day meeting which start half an hour late due to street blockades.

Police said two officers, a man and a woman, had to be hospitalised following attacks by protestors.

“Unknown assailants kicked two police officers in the head” and continued to “hit them while they were on the ground”, said the police of North Westphalia, where Essen is located.

Doctors later established their injuries were not as serious as initially feared, said police.

Seven officers were also slightly injured in the clashes near the Grugahalle hall. The perpetrators fled the scene.

Police said earlier they had used pepper spray and batons in earlier clashes.

“Several disruptive violent actions occurred in the Ruettenscheld quarter. Demonstrators, some of them hooded, attacked security forces. Several arrests were made,” the police of North Westphalia, where Essen is located, said on X, formerly Twitter.

A top regional official had warned that “potentially violent far-left troublemakers” could be among the protesters.

The total number of officers injured Saturday was 28, said police, adding that several people had been arrested.

‘Here to stay’

In early June the Alternative for Germany (AfD) notched up its best European Union election result since its creation in 2013, winning 16 percent of the vote to take second place.

Chrupalla praised party progress at a local level and its strong European Union election result.

It was behind the main conservative CDU-CSU opposition bloc but ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), which is in power at the head of a troubled three-party coalition.

The AfD congress comes ahead of three key elections in September in states that once formed part of communist East Germany, and where the AfD has been topping opinion polls.

“We are here and we will stay,” said party co-president Alice Weidel, opening the congress and drawing sustained applause.

Both Weidel and Chrupalla were re-elected to lead the party for another two years.

“We have the right like all political parties — to hold a congress,” she added.

Buoyed by a surge in immigration and a weak performance by Europe’s top economy, the party hit as high as 22 percent in opinion polls in January.

However their support faltered amid a welter of scandals that mainly implicated their top EU election candidate, Maximilian Krah.

Tainted EU candidate

“I believe that the party has learnt a lot in recent months and will be very careful when we put forward leading candidates in the future,” Weidel told the Politico news outlet Thursday.

Krah initially faced allegations of suspicious links to Russia and China.

He then sparked widespread anger by telling an Italian newspaper that not every member of the Nazis’ notorious SS was “automatically a criminal”.

The comments prompted the AfD’s expulsion from its far-right group, Identity and Democracy (ID), in the European Parliament, in which France’s National Rally (RN) and Italy’s League had been its partners.

While the AfD has sought to shift the blame for all its recent woes onto Krah, there were signs of problems even before.

The RN had already distanced itself from the AfD after reports emerged in January that the German party had discussed the expulsion of immigrants and “non-assimilated” citizens at a meeting with extremists.

The reports caused shock in Germany and triggered weeks of mass protests.

Following the EU polls, the AfD ejected Krah from the delegation it sends to Brussels but the ID group does not seem ready to re-admit them, leaving the party searching for new partners.

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