Germany: AfD on the rise - democracy in danger?

2023-12-19 08:57:08, Kosova & Bota CNA

Germany: AfD on the rise - democracy in danger?

Tim Lochner won the mayoral election in Pirna (Saxony) on 17 December 2023 as an AfD candidate

Tim Lochner is the man whose name will go down in the history of Alternative for Germany. The 53-year-old won the mayoral election in Pirna (the federal state of Saxony) on December 17, 2023 as an AfD candidate, being independent himself. The city on the border with the Czech Republic, home to 39,000 inhabitants, is the first to have a right-wing populist mayor.

AfD has experienced a wave of successes for years. In October, it achieved double-digit results in the elections in the state of Bavaria (14.6 percent) and in the state of Hesse (18.4 percent). In June he won the election in the Sonneberg district in the state of Thuringia.

AfD in three German states, proved to be extreme right"

Meanwhile, due to its extremist tendencies, the AfD is increasingly targeted by security authorities. In December the Association of the Land of Saxony was classified by the Body for the Protection of the Constitution as "proven right-wing extremist". The same thing happened in Saxony-Anhalt in November and in Thuringia in 2021. There are also five federal states where the party is being watched as a so-called case of right-wing extremism.

In the other eight German states out of a total of 16, and consequently in the other half of Germany, neither one nor the other assessment applies to the AfD. Their aggressive rhetoric and contacts with extremist circles such as the anti-immigrant movement Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West) are seen in very different ways by the state.

AfD candidate Tim Lochner

How should the media report on the AfD?

Even the German media is struggling to find the right way to deal with the AfD. "Stern" magazine was criticized from many sides, because it had set as the title of the cover an interview on the ideas of the leader of the party and its parliamentary group, Alice Weidel. The main charge: she has been given an unnecessary platform.

Public television interviewer Sandra Maischberger moderated a debate between AfD honorary chairman Alexander Gauland and former German interior minister Gerhart Baum. Both elderly men who experienced the Nazi era as children. One has been a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) for 40 years, before switching to the AfD, the other a Free Democrat (FDP) since 1954.

"We face a wave of right-wing extremism"

For Baum, who as interior minister until 1982 fought the left-wing terrorism of the Red Army Faction (RAF), one thing is certain: "AfD is the parliamentary wing of a movement that reaches the middle classes" ;. A bourgeoisie that according to experts is becoming more and more radicalized. "We are exposed to a wave of right-wing extremism," says the 91-year-old, who has been committed to freedom and civil rights for decades.

Gauland defends himself against the accusation that the AfD is against democracy: "This is an attempt by the Entity for the Protection of the Constitution to delegitimize us." But this does not coincide with reality. "On the contrary, we are even for a democracy, in which there are more popular referendums", says the 82-year-old. This is a claim based on the party program.

What are AfD's views on the notion of humanity?

The head of the AfD faction in the German state of Thuringia, Björn Höcke, asked speaking as a guest at a Pegida rally in Dresden: "What is actually left of the German people?" According to his perception apparently not much. Höcke's rhetoric often uses terms such as "population exchange", "Africanization", "orientalization", "Islamization" and "death of the people".

Germany: AfD on the rise - democracy in danger?

It is this language and this mindset that causes concern among AfD opponents such as Gerhart Baum. "They have a nationalist way of thinking, which excludes people of other origin and other religion,", he says in a debate with Alexander Gauland. And whoever excludes people violates their human dignity. "This is the main accusation that the jurists of the constitutional court make against them."

"We do not represent a nationalist ideal"

In Gauland's words, everything sounds quite different: "We do not represent an ethnic ideal, but we represent a cultural community. Yes, we are against the mass immigration of people, who come from a completely foreign culture to us."

In the opinion of Bundestag member Marco Wanderwitz, the AfD should be banned. As a child and teenager, the Christian Democrat experienced the East German dictatorship, which was overthrown in a peaceful revolution in 1989. His main charge against right-wing populists: "Human dignity is openly questioned."

Ban the AfD?

On this topic, the magazine "Der Spiegel" devoted a ten-page front-page article to it in November with the headline: "Ban the AfD?" Experts' assessments of whether this step succeeds are different. The German Institute for Human Rights, funded by the Bundestag, concludes in a legal opinion that the chances are good. The reason: AfD consistently ignores fundamental rights.

"Exactly German history has shown that the basic free democratic order of a state can be destroyed if inhumane attitudes are not met with energetic resistance at the right time, but are able to spread and prevail," argues the director of the institute, Beate Rudolph.

Legal researcher Sophie Schënberger from the University of Düsseldorf comes to a different conclusion: "From what I see in the publicly available materials, I don't know if this is enough to ban the party nationwide." And if the application in Germany were to be successful, the AfD could turn to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. She says she is very skeptical that an AfD ban will apply there.

For historian Heinrich August Winkler, there is no doubt that democracy is under pressure, not only in Germany. In an interview for "Tagesspiegel" he expresses cautious optimism: "I still believe that the liberal forces of Western democracy will prove stronger than the opponents of the achievements of the Enlightenment".

The new power of national populist parties

But he is much more skeptical than he was 30 years ago after the peaceful revolutions in East Central Europe and the reunification of Germany. "The worrying fact is that national populist parties draw their power from all political camps," warns Winkler. In other words: democracy is under pressure from many sides.

In the current polls for the 2024 elections in the states of Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, the AfD leads everywhere with shares of 30 percent or more. She has no perspective to participate in any government, because no one wants to form a coalition with her. This is a significant difference compared to other countries in Europe, where populist and right-wing extremist parties have been in power for a long time: Italy, Hungary, Finland or Sweden constitute a trend whose end is difficult to predict./ DW