German hard-right party AFD wins first state election since World War Two as controversial leader vows ‘we need change’

2 months ago 2

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A GERMAN party has won the first election by a far-right party in the country since WW2 as a controversial leader has vowed change.

The Alternative for Deutschland is on course to win just under a third of votes in two states that held elections in the east of the country today.

a man in a suit and tie with a russian flag pin

AfD member Bjorn Hocke speaks to media today after exit polls were released[/caption]

a group of people holding a sign that says hocke jrr habt es schon einmal

People carry a banner during a protest against the AfD yesterday[/caption]

a man riding a bike in front of a sign that says nein zu nazis

A banner with the words ‘No to Nazis’ during the Thuringia state elections[/caption]

AfD is set to win around 32 to 33 per cent of votes in Thuringia and 31 per cent in neighbouring Saxony.

If the exit polls hold, it will be the first time a far-right party has been the strongest in a state parliament since the Nazis.

The win marks another step in the steady growth of the far-right party which has shocked the post-war political establishment.

National government infighting, anti-immigration feelings and skepticism toward German military aid for Ukraine have contributed to support for populist parties in the region.

The final week of campaigning was overshadowed by the killing of three people at a festival in a knife attack.

The killer is allegedly an illegal resident Syrian national whom authorities had failed to deport.

Alice Weidel, a national co-leader of AfD, said the elections were a “historic success”.

Referring to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government, she said: “This is a requiem for the coalition. The coalition should ask itself whether it can continue to govern at all.

“The voters want the AfD in government… Without us, a stable government is not possible.”

Currently, the AfD is polling second for next year’s election sitting with just under 20 per cent of the forecast vote.

Some parties say they won’t put AfD in power by joining it in a coalition.

Even so, its strength is likely to make it extremely difficult to form new state governments.

The party’s Thuringia leader Bjorn Hocke has been found guilty of using banned Nazi slogans twice.

Hocke used a SA storm trooper phrase in a campaign speech last December after using the same slogan in 2021.

He was fined twice totalling 30,000 Euros for the usage.

Following the result, Hocke said: “We need change and change will only come with the AfD.”

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has the AfD’s Saxony and Thuringia branches under surveillance due to extremism.

All the other parties in the election had ruled out working with AfD, Reuters reported.

A new party founded by a prominent leftist has also shaken up the status quo.

The left populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which like the AfD wants less immigration and an end to arming Ukraine, came third in both states just eight months after its founding.

They are set to take 16 per cent of the vote in Thuringia and 12 per cent in Saxony, adding another level of complication.

Wagenknecht celebrated that party’s success, underlined its refusal to work with AfD and said she hopes it can form a good government with Angela Merkel’s CDU.

Eastern Germany, formerly one communist state, is less prosperous than western Germany.

With a year to go until Germany’s national election, the results look punishing for Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition.

All three parties lost votes, with junior partners, the Greens and Free Democrats, on the cusp of missing the 5% threshold needed to stay in parliament.

Bodo Ramelow, the premier of Thuringia, whose Left party was battered despite his personal popularity, said all democratic parties now had to work together.

“I am not fighting the conservatives. I am not fighting the BSW. I am fighting the normalisation of fascism.”

Who are the AFD?

The party was founded in April 2013 ahead of that year’s federal elections in September.

Starting as an anti-euro party, the AfD was a reaction to the European debt crisis which had seen Germany bailout some of the EU’s struggling economies.

Their first manifesto called for less centralised powers in Brussels and the scrapping of the Euro currency.

But despite an impressive showing in the 2013 election – winning 4.7 per cent of the vote – the AfD failed to gain the five per cent needed to enter the German parliament.

The party filled the space left by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU which has shifted towards the political centre.

But while the AfD capitalised on Europe’s economic discord, it was Merkel’s reaction to the refugee crisis that propelled the far-right party into the Bundestag.

In 2017, the party shocked Europe and won 12.6 per cent of the vote, making it the third largest in the Bundestag.

But, in 2021, its vote share shrank down to 10 per cent as the CDU was voted out of power wand replaced by a left-wing coalition.

Currently, the AFD is polling second for next year’s election sitting with just under 20 per cent of the forecast vote.