Another success for the AfD: In Thuringia it is well ahead in another district election. Unrest is growing in Berlin. What helps against the spread of the right-wing fringe?
Given the rise of the AfD and its network with radical activists, the other parties are anxiously looking for recipes against the far-right party. Now they have recorded another stage victory: the AfD candidate won the first round of district elections in the Saale-Orla district in eastern Thuringia and is now heading into the runoff election with a clear lead.
Voices are now becoming louder in the SPD who want Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to have a different migration policy and better communication in order to take the wind out of the AfD’s sails. There is also discussion about an application to ban the party because of its involvement with right-wing extremists, but there is great skepticism.
Anyone who dares to take cover in the SPD
The Bochum SPD member of the Bundestag Axel Schäfer told the “Tagesspiegel”: “We have to become more courageous in limiting migration and accept the conflict with the Greens. I am quite sure: Olaf Scholz can do that.” In this way, the Chancellor could demonstrate assertiveness and at the same time stop the AfD’s rise. In his opinion, the Social Democrats could become the strongest force again in the federal election if they waged a campaign to defend democracy against the AfD.
SPD board member Andreas Stoch pointed out in the newspaper that “the Chancellor now has a special responsibility.” “Olaf Scholz needs to engage in more social dialogue before decisions like the heating law or agricultural subsidies are made,” said Baden-Württemberg’s SPD leader. “He should look into his heart a little more and explain better what was in favor and what was against it.”
Where the parties stand
Scholz recently fell in surveys: according to the ARD Germany trend from January, only 19 percent are satisfied with his work. According to the broadcaster, this is the lowest value since these Chancellor surveys began in 1997. In general, the values of the traffic light parties in the surveys have collapsed, for the SPD to around 13 to 15 percent.
The AfD, on the other hand, has been at a poll high for months and ranks at 22 to 24 percent nationally. In Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony, where state elections are due in September, it is well over 30 percent.
According to preliminary results, AfD candidate Uwe Thrum received 45.7 percent in the Saale-Orla district on Sunday. The runner-up, CDU state general secretary Christian Herrgott, achieved 33.3 percent. Since neither won an absolute majority, both will go to a runoff election on January 28th. The AfD then has the chance to win its second district administrator position nationwide. The first was last year in the Sonneberg district, also in Thuringia. The party is classified as proven right-wing extremist by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the Free State, as well as in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.
Which further fuels the unrest
A Potsdam meeting of radical right-wingers from November became known on Wednesday. Individual AfD officials as well as individual members of the CDU and the ultra-conservative Values Union also took part. The former head of the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement in Austria, Martin Sellner, confirmed to the dpa that he had spoken about “remigration” there.
Right-wing extremists usually mean that a large number of people of foreign origin should leave the country – even under duress. According to the media company Correctiv, Sellner named three groups: asylum seekers, foreigners with the right to remain – and “unassimilated citizens”.
Why it’s not easy with a ban
Since then, calls for a ban on the AfD have become louder. It would have to be applied for by the Federal Government, Bundestag or Bundesrat to the Constitutional Court and provided with sufficient evidence. “It is completely right to consider banning the AfD, which is largely proven to be right-wing extremist,” said SPD parliamentary secretary Katja Mast to “Welt”. However, the debate on the matter is more important. “An uprising of decent people against a massive shift to the right is necessary. In and especially outside parliaments.”
The SPD heads of government in Saarland and the state of Hamburg warned of the dangers of failure in Karlsruhe. A ban procedure should only be initiated if it is certain to be successful, Saar Prime Minister Anke Rehlinger told “Welt”. “Otherwise you are organizing a disastrous success for the party, which it will exploit.” The FDP parliamentary secretary in the Bundestag, Stephan Thomae, also argued this way. Hamburg’s First Mayor Peter Tschentscher warned that proceedings should only begin “when there is sufficient evidence and information to enforce a ban in court.”
What else is discussed as a means against the AfD
The party leader of the newly founded BSW, Sahra Wagenknecht, spoke out in favor of a political rather than a legal dispute. “We can’t seriously say, because politics is so bad and people want to vote for a party like the AfD out of outrage, that we’ll ban this party,” she said in the ARD “Report from Berlin”. “And a little more differentiation would be good for the debate because we are helping the AfD through this unobjective hysteria.” She added: “There are Nazis in this party, that’s true. But of course, (the party and parliamentary group leader) Ms. Weidel is still not a Nazi.”
The left-wing politician Dietmar Bartsch recommended that the parties focus more on their own issues and tasks. “I consider the permanent fixation on the AfD and (the Thuringian regional association leader Björn) Höcke, who is classified as a right-wing extremist, to be wrong,” he told the Germany editorial network.
Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) cited “a policy that provides security and orientation” as well as the “very personal commitment of more and more people to our democracy towards others” as the prerequisites for containing the AfD in the “world”. The SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil said on ARD: “I expect that no one will be silent and no one will watch anymore, but that those who are currently quiet will also raise their voices loudly and say, we will not allow this country to be like that is polarized and divided by a group that is much, much smaller than the sensible people in this country.”
Whatever the right-wing meeting does
Many people now see it that way. At demonstrations in Berlin, Potsdam and other cities, tens of thousands took a stand against the right. In Berlin alone, according to police and organizers, 25,000 gathered at the Brandenburg Gate. According to the mayor, there were 10,000 in Potsdam, including Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens). 7,000 to 8,000 people demonstrated against the AfD in Kiel and 5,000 in Saarbrücken.