Mario Jung doesn’t match the profile of a political hardliner. The 59-year-old banking clerk, who lives in Magdeburg in japanese Germany, has voted for the nation’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) prior to now.
However he blames former Chancellor Angela Merkel for pushing the CDU to the left and on Sunday, within the state election in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, he’ll again the far-right Different for Germany (AfD) social gathering.
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“I’m a conservative, and the primary motive for me to vote for the (far-right) AfD is the financial system,” he informed Al Jazeera.
He additionally agrees with the AfD’s hardline immigration coverage.
“All unlawful immigrants, these whose purposes have been denied, and legal immigrants as properly – they must be deported; there is no such thing as a query about it,” he mentioned.
The regional elections pose a take a look at for Germany’s political institution, with the AfD in rivalry for prime positions within the state authorities.
In Saxony-Anhalt, it’s poised to turn into the primary far-right drive to move a German state authorities since World Battle II, with the AfD’s main candidate, Ulrich Siegmund.
He was dubbed “Germany’s most harmful man” by the influential journal Der Spiegel. Earlier than turning into a politician for the AfD, Siegmund was a member of the CDU.
The social gathering has been categorised as “far-right extremist” in Saxony-Anhalt by Germany’s home intelligence service. The AfD is main the state by a large margin within the polls, anticipated to win greater than 40 p.c of the votes.
The conservative CDU is much behind at simply above 20 p.c, adopted by the Left Celebration at 12 p.c, the Social Democrats at 7 p.c and the Greens at 5 p.c. Relying on which smaller events clear the brink to enter parliament, the opposite events may probably type a majority with out the AfD. However German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) lately dominated out cooperation with each the Left Celebration and the AfD, a celebration whose officers have used Nazi slogans.
Nationalism on the fore
In its election platform, titled “The Nation First”, the AfD requires the abolition of the proper to asylum, the confiscation of money and property of asylum seekers and mass deportations.
Anybody who insults German identification or the “historical-cultural entity Germany” may face a jail sentence, based on the marketing campaign. The social gathering additionally seeks to ban the “Antifa” motion, cancel public broadcasting and reverse the shift in the direction of renewable power.
Based in 2013 as a Eurosceptic social gathering within the aftermath of the European Union monetary disaster, it gained floor throughout Merkel’s 2015 choice to confess about one million refugees, lots of them Syrian.
It has since shifted additional proper, dominated in the present day by a nationalist wing and hardline factions within the east, hardline immigration positions and opposition to sanctions on Russia.
The AfD has additionally repeatedly politicised assaults by asylum seekers or Germans with international descent.
Whereas critics argue that such incidents obtain extreme media focus, the deadly car attack at Berlin’s Delight parade in July retains pushing the subject into the headlines. AfD blamed the “catastrophic migration coverage of the previous few years”, however the attacker had been born in Germany.
Why is AfD on the rise?
Specialists have put ahead varied hypotheses to clarify the party’s popularity.
Final yr, it grew to become the second-largest social gathering within the Bundestag, securing 21 p.c of the vote in federal elections.
In Germany’s japanese states, which have been previously a part of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Jap Bloc and underwent a radical transition after reunification, structural components are at play, analysts say.
The area is characterised by an absence of jobs, a scarcity of native medical doctors, the decline of public transportation, depopulated villages, and a persistent notion that the japanese states are ruled by distant liberal elites in Berlin.
Thomas Biebricher, a professor at Goethe College Frankfurt, believes the primary motive for the AfD’s success “is widespread dissatisfaction with the political state of affairs, the federal authorities and the general financial state of affairs within the nation. On the similar time, the AfD has managed to appoint a lead candidate who’s doing an excellent job,” he informed Al Jazeera.
Whereas the social gathering is commonly seen as hottest amongst staff, its success can be linked to “components of the capitalist class” who’re pushing a neoliberal agenda, Biebricher mentioned.
“There are influential AfD supporters who imagine that capitalism is over-regulated, that taxes ought to be lowered, and that the state, total, ought to merely intervene much less.
“If it have been to enter authorities, it could be the primary time since 1945 {that a} social gathering with a far-right agenda would enter authorities on the state stage,” he added. It will “additionally trigger appreciable harm to Germany’s picture”.
For a number of years, the CDU has been debating nationwide how you can take care of the AfD. On the native stage, the “precept of non-cooperation” – also referred to as the “firewall”- has already been deserted.
Martin Schroder, a professor of social sciences at Saarland College, believes that the AfD’s migration coverage is essential for its success.
Along with a workforce, he carried out a research based mostly on information from 2014 to 2024.
“Issues about immigration clarify assist for the AfD almost 10 occasions as a lot as precise or perceived financial drawback,” he informed Al Jazeera.
One other key election takes place on September 20 in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the place the AfD can be polling at about 37 p.c.
Like Saxony-Anhalt, the northeastern state was previously a part of the GDR. Berlin can even go to the polls that day. Within the capital, which can be considered one of Germany’s 16 federal states, the CDU at present leads with 21 p.c, adopted by the Left Celebration at 19 p.c and the AfD at 18 p.c.
