Far-right AfD’s victory in Germany not surprising

Alternative for Germany or AfD had been gaining ground for some years now, and it has been gaining electoral ground over successive state and national elections. Now it has gained convincing victory in the provincial election for Saxony-Anhalt, and this is seen as a stepping stone to victory at the national level in 2029.

People in Germany are apprehensive over the rise of AfD because of Germany’s catastrophic political past under the Nazis and Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s. Though rightist parties have gained ground all over Europe, especially on issues like immigration, ordinary people who are inclined towards conservative Christian Democrats are not happy to go with AfD. There was a protest march over AfD’s victory. Thousands marched in Magdeburg, capital of Saxony-Anhalt. Said demonstrator Laura Saalfeld, “I’m very worried. Whatever the results, the atmosphere will change. Far-right sympathisers will show themselves more openly on the streets.”

Despite the impressive 44.5 vote percentage, it is not clear whether AfD will be able to form the government. It may have to look for coalition partners. Surprisingly, it appears that the far-right may have to join hands will the leftists because the Christian Democrats, who have 18.5 per cent of the vote, would not want to form a coalition with AfD. Predictably, AfD leaders are happy with the result. Party co-founder Alice Weidel described the electoral victory as “historic’ and she was confident that the party would form the government in Saxony-Anhalt.

AfD challenges the post-Second World War consensus in Germany that the Nazis and organisations who share their ideology should never be allowed to come to power. The moot question is whether after 80 years after the war, Germany would be able to entertain the prospect of a far-right party at helm of power in the country.

The other country that has been equally apprehensive of the rise of far-right parties is Japan, which paid a heavy price when then US president Harry S Truman dropped atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Germany too paid a heavy price when the British bombed Dresden and Hamburg intensively and gratuitously.

Germany had lost the war and the bombing was seen as vengeance of what the Germans had done in the early phase of the war, during the Blitzkrieg, when the German wartime air force Luftwaffe bombed London.

The rise of AfD is seen as a result of the economic decline and social restlessness in German society. And the growing presence of migrants in Germany – the earliest post-war immigration was from Turkey – is giving rise to anti-immigration sentiment, bordering on racism. It is this strain of racism in the response of the people to economic stress that raises the spectre of Nazism. And all the established political parties across the ideological spectrum are opposed to AfD.

The AfD leaders argue that it is scaremongering on the part of the other political parties, and all that they want to do is to tackle the social and economic problems that Germans are facing. It has been a case with all far-right parties that on the pretext of addressing an existing problem they introduce their totalitarian mode of dominance.

The victory of AfD in Saxony-Anhalt is not surprising because across Europe right-wing and far-right parties have been winning elections. But they have not yet become the dominant parties though that is their agenda. In France, the far right National Rally is knocking at the gates of power, though there is determined opposition from the communists and socialists at one end of the political spectrum to the centrists and conservatives at the other. It has to be seen whether Christian Democrats and Social Democrats would join hands to keep AfD out of power.