The AfD hopes to be able to govern in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg from autumn onwards. Preparations for this have been underway for a long time. The party is likely to miss the target. But it could significantly expand its influence.
She attacks and downplays what could be dangerous for the AfD. Hans-Christoph Berndt, parliamentary group leader in the Brandenburg state parliament, sees everything from Correctiv research to the Federal Interior Minister’s measures against right-wing extremism as an “escalation of the establishment” – out of fear of the upcoming state elections.
Jörg Urban, the top candidate in Saxony, calls the democracy demonstrations a “demo caravan” of the “gathered asylum and integration industry.”
Stefan Möller, co-state leader in Thuringia, says that the AfD continues to succeed in convincing people, “even though we are basically put in the same line as mass murderers from the Third Reich on a daily basis.”
The party sees itself on the rise
In fact, the AfD in Saxony is stable at around 35 percent in surveys, and in Brandenburg around 30 percent. Only in Thuringia has it recently fallen slightly: The MDR-ThuringiaTrend from Infratest dimap shows the AfD at 29 percent – it was 34 in the summer.
In the three state elections in September, the party would make gains everywhere compared to 2019 and become the strongest force. Above all, she wants to come into a state government for the first time in the fall.
The AfD is already growing. The Brandenburg regional association, for example, has gained almost half of its approximately 2,400 members in the past two years. Instead of pensioners, working engineers, entrepreneurs and employees from administrations would now come to the AfD. According to officials, the increased surveillance by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has only deterred one group: police officers.
Since the Potsdam meeting became known in January, the crowds in the AfD have increased again. Citizen dialogues attract hundreds of interested parties. The party is receiving support without moderating itself.
No moderation
The Thuringian AfD’s top candidate is emblematic of this development: Björn Höcke, who was classified as a right-wing extremist by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in 2020, wants to become Prime Minister. As such, Höcke wants to sue the federal government over its refugee policy.
At an AfD event at the end of 2023, Höcke said in connection with the expulsion of foreigners that Germany could also cope with “20, 30 percent less population”. This roughly corresponds to the proportion of people with a migrant background in the total population. More than half are German citizens. On the same evening, Höcke also advertised for “deportation helpers”.
However: Höcke’s popularity rating in Thuringia is below that of the AfD. Co-country chief Stefan Möller isn’t fazed by this. A third of people come to AfD events “because of Björn Höcke, a third despite Höcke – and the rest don’t care,” says Möller tagesschau.de.
For Möller, this is not a criticism of the top candidate. He is convinced that he will prevail in the TV duel against CDU state chairman Mario Voigt at the beginning of April. Höcke has shown time and time again “that with his statements he wins more supporters for us than he loses,” said Möller. In order to oppose the AfD and push the Left Party into the sidelines, Voigt seeks direct confrontation – and enhances Höcke in the eyes of his critics.
Rows are closing
The AfD is trying to appear united and professional before the elections. She drew up the Thuringian state list based on a coordinated list proposal – a practice that was frowned upon in the party. In Saxony too, there were obviously agreements before the list was drawn up.
In Brandenburg, a new leadership came into office in mid-March without a vote. The head of the state is now René Springer, a member of the Bundestag. Springer had commented on Correctiv’s research: “We will return foreigners to their homeland. Millions of times.” That is a promise.
Hans-Christoph Berndt was elected as Springer’s second deputy. He sees Germany on “the path to party dictatorship,” as he said in his application speech.
The election campaign is already becoming apparent in the speeches by Berndt and other board members. Accordingly, the other parties stand for a policy that makes people poorer and disenfranchises them: impoverishment through inflation, taxes, climate protection levies and asylum funds that would be missing elsewhere – disenfranchisement through Corona measures, gender language and the persecution of supposedly legitimate opinions.
Prime Ministers in focus
Berndt called those responsible a “caste of self-satisfied, fat-hearted politicians” and was particularly targeting Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD).
In Saxony, too, the Prime Minister is the focus. “Michael Kretschmer speaks AfD, but he delivers green,” says his AfD challenger Jörg Urban in an interview. The appearance of the CDU politician, who governs with the Greens and SPD, is the AfD’s main point of attack.
Urban accuses Kretschmer of the Corona policy. At times, tougher measures were in effect in Saxony than elsewhere, also because the state had the highest death rate in Germany. Urban speaks of an “overreaching state” and calls the vaccination campaign an “experiment”. If the AfD governs after the election, a commission will be set up. Urban suspects that decision-makers may have committed criminal offenses.
Preparing to govern
The AfD is preparing to govern. The federal executive board founded an academy last year. Among other things, it trains managers in the work processes of ministries. Brandenburg and Saxony work together with her.
“Once we’re in, we want to start immediately,” says Urban. It probably needs 100 to 150 people – as ministers, state secretaries, speakers, press spokespersons. These would not only come from Saxony. As the AfD, we have “a shared responsibility to ensure that things turn out well,” says Urban.
But some leaders are skeptical that the AfD pool is large enough to contest more than one government. Especially since the AfD would probably need an absolute majority in the elections in order to govern, the leaders of all other parties categorically reject a coalition.
The stress test
According to surveys, a different scenario is more likely: the AfD only needs to get a third of all MPs to give parliamentary democracy a stress test. Then it would not only force the other parties to form unwanted coalitions.
Without AfD votes, the constitution could no longer be changed. No constitutional judge would be elected and no broadcasting council would be appointed. If no stable government comes into being, a state parliament could not be dissolved without the AfD.
Because all of these decisions require a two-thirds majority – in some countries also for the election of the President of the Court of Auditors, the Judicial Election Committee and the Parliamentary Control Commission. The latter controls the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Such elections are already sometimes failing.
The calculation in the party is that her opponents would then have to talk to her. The “total exclusion”, as the Thuringian AfD co-state leader Stefan Möller calls it, would break down.