At the AfD’s convention, the party’s direction was supposed to get redefined. However, an anticipated coup by the hard-right did not occur. Instead, the party may have laid the foundation to become a viable government option in the future.

Party co-founder and former CDU member Alexander Gauland stepped down as one of the party’s chairs during the convention. However, not before handpicking his predecessor Tino Chrupalla, who now, together with Jörg Meuthen will lead the federal AfD. Chrupalla had several opponents and thus won with only 54 percent of the vote. Meuthen, who is also a Member of the European Parliament, received a better result than expected at just under 70 percent.

After the party has been established in all German states and remains the biggest opposition party in the federal parliament, both men communicated the next steps: the AfD needs to become a governing party and more professional.

The conundrum with this goal? All other parties continue to categorically exclude any cooperation with the AfD, never mind a coalition. The fact that the nationalist group within the AfD “Der Flügel” continues to gain momentum, makes government participation anytime soon not more conceivable.

Neither Meuthen nor Chrupalla belongs to the Flügel, however, particularly Chrupalla has continuously used a rather dubious language that carries certain connotations, e.g. “Mischvolk” (mixed race) or “Umvolkung” (ethnic replacement) when referring to Germany’s immigration policies. His calling card has been his biography. Chrupalla is East German, geographically the party’s stronghold and, due to his previous profession as a painter, has the makings to become a highly relatable person for the working class.

In terms of his vision, Chrupalla remained vague, stating only a simple message: “We now have the task of bringing our country back on a better path. Our beautiful Germany deserves a different policy. ” How this path will be reached and what a different policy would look like was not addressed.

Prior to the convention, rumors continued to circulate that either Germany’s most controversial politician and Flügel leader Björn Höcke could seek to join the leadership team and thereby push the AfD into the same direction on the federal, the party has embarked on in the eastern states, including borderline neo-nazism.

In the end, Höcke decided to not compete for any federal office. The Flügel’s influence was omnipresent, nonetheless. Moderate elements of the party (e.g. Kay Gottschalk, Georg Pazderski) and thus main critics of Höcke and the Flügel’s other face, Andreas Kalbitz, lost their deputy positions during the convention.

It displays the continuing dichotomy within the party. Moderates such as Meuthen, who try to position the party for future government positions continue to struggle with the far-right elements the highly popular Flügel offers. A quasi civil war was expected, even Meuthen could have been voted out in favor of a radical replacement (one of the candidates, though not a member of the Flügel is a well-known Holocaust denier).

However, a rebellion did not occur. This leads to the question of whether or not the party has found a consensus that would, perhaps, result in toning down the rhetoric. It would allow the party to eventually position itself as a viable coalition option of the future.

Here, the CDU remains the logical partner and given the current constellation ins Germany, where a hard-left alliance cannot be stopped unilaterally, the AfD has the chance to become an inevitable quantity for the CDU if it manages to emancipate itself from its radical elements.

L'articolo Germany’s Far-Right AfD Elects new Leadership proviene da InsideOver.

The elections in Saxony and Brandenburg were the latest success stories of Germany’s far-right party, the AfD. And the question amongst politicians remains: how to deal with this phenomenon, that seemingly overcomes a long-standing law in German politics: there is no life on the CDU’s right.

Despite Germany’s history, the country has had the occasional guest appearance of right-wing extremist groups in parliament. The Republicans, DVU or the NPD, all attempted to become part of the political discourse. They failed miserably. Daily political life exposed their inadequacies almost immediately. The AfD has altered this track record.

When the AfD was founded in 2013, it was considered an alternative for voters who felt alienated by Chancellor Merkel’s dogmatic way of policymaking.

Economic liberalism and above all by the fight against the Euro were on top of the party’s agenda. The potential was omnipresent, had the CDU under Merkel left centre-right and transformed into a centre-left party. With a rise in popularity, the party gained traction amongst rather dubious individuals also. As a result, the party’s founder, Professor Lucke, lost a power struggle with the populist right within his party in 2015. Paradigm shifts away from Euro-scepticism and Greece bailouts towards integration, Islam and refugees followed.

With unexpected success – despite having moved even further to the right since its foundation. But the increasing radicalization of the party and its positions has not been a detriment. Quite the contrary. In 2014, for the first time, the AFD succeeded in becoming a member of a supraregional parliament in the European elections. Since then, the AfD has managed to enter all sixteen state parliament and established itself on the federal level also; becoming the largest opposition party in the Bundestagswahl of 2017 with 12.6%. Before the election success in east Germany, the party reached 11% at the European Elections.

The party’s gains since 2013 have been attributed to the mobilisation of former non-voters as well as protest voters, disappointed and disenfranchised by governing parties, particularly CDU and FDP as well as, to a lesser extent, the SPD and The Left. In recent elections, however, political scientists have observed the emergence of regular voters, who identify themselves with the AfD’s ideology of refugee immigration being a danger for the cultural homogeneity of society.

However, the AfD remains a schizophrenic party. Classical Conservativism, economic-liberalism and Christian-fundamentalist forces and the one side, mainly located in western Germany as well as on the federal level, which is being supplemented by nationalism, homophobic, anti-feminist, anti-Semitic and historical revisionist positions, as well as the occasional Neo-Nazism support – mainly, but not limited to, east Germany.

Particularly the east German AfD has been infiltrated by extremism. Here, its members openly fraternise with right-wing extremist groups and neo-Nazis. The latest example is Brandenburg’s AfD chair Andreas Kalbitz, who, in the past, had been cultivating memberships in neo-Nazi groups. Not a stigma in the AfD, nor east Germany. One week ago, he led the AfD into the Brandenburg state parliament.

But the extreme right’s poster child remains Thuringia’s Björn Höcke. Höcke has made a habit of making statements linked to Neo-Nazism and is known for his proclivity play down Germany’s role in World War II – to put it mildly. It has gone so far, that other party members have tried to expel Höcke. With no success. Next month, he will be Thuringia’s top candidate and is likely to be responsible for yet another AfD election success.

Kalbitz as well as Höcke are leading figures within the party and represent a group named “Der Flügel” (The Wing). It accounts for 40% of all AfD members in east Germany.

The Saxony and Brandenburg election results raised the question of how much longer the AfD is willing to be an opposition and protest party. So far, the political dictum for all German parties has been to isolate the AfD. However, for the party to become a conceivable option to CDU and SPD, the extreme elements within the AfD would have to transform or disappear. The status quo nor the recent success indicate that the AfD is seeking to transform anytime soon.

Historically, newly founded parties only survived if they succeeded in repelling their radical elements or keeping them at an infinitesimal level.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Greens had former members of communist splinter groups in their party. As a result, other parties chastised the Green and were unwilling to even consider cooperation. Over the years, this influence was gradually marginalized. It allowed the Greens to enter a coalition with the SPD in 1998. The Greens had emancipated themselves and arrived, at the time, at the apogee of their power.

The SED, which is now The Left, conducted a similar transformation. A Communist platform in the early phase, which was classified as extremist by the constitutional protection, has lost its influence in the party. Although individual members continue to maintain contact with anti-constitutional groups in the opinion of Germany’s intelligence service, they are not the mainstream of a party long since arrived in Germany and has held government positions on a state level.

However, there is an important distinction between these two examples and today’s AfD: ideology. Due to its history, Germany had almost been impervious to right-wing rhetoric and even conservative elements can deliberately be interpreted as 1940s propaganda. Meanwhile, the extreme left and the idea of a Marxist Utopia, has always had its market.

While an AfD coalition with neo-Nazi elements is rightfully out of the question, even a strong right-leaning conservative approach may be insufficient for the party to redeem itself.

Which raises the question: will there ever be a future for the party besides an opposition force? The answer lies in the other parties’ modus operandi. If the CDU does not reverse its course once Merkel ceased to be chancellor and if a coalition with the Greens is suddenly en vogue due to the climate hysteria, the chances of an AfD becoming stronger than the major parties in east Germany is conceivable. But in a parliamentary system based on majorities, the AfD would face the same conundrum again: finding a partner.

On the federal level, the party is likely to increase its support as well, but likely never to the extent of its eastern branch – unless it says au revoir to its radical elements and becomes a viable alternative for conservatives and former CDU voters.

Until then the AfD will remain a party with strong voter support but out of power. And while this paradigm shift is unlikely to occur while the party continuous to receive this much support, Germany will face a political Groundhog Day at every election: major parties lose support, the AfD gains. Outrage. Calls for a new strategy against the AfD.

L'articolo Unsuccessful Despite Being Successful – Who are Germany’s AfD? proviene da InsideOver.

Not for the first time, Germany is confronting homegrown extremism. When CDU (Christian Democratic Union) politician Walter Lübcke was murdered on June 2, it starkly highlighted a problem that has long been simmering under the surface of German politics, and that belies Germany’s enviable image as the EU’s economic powerhouse.

Yes, Lübcke’s murderer has far-right political convictions, with national media reporting that he targeted Lübcke principally as a result of pro-migrant remarks the 65-year-old politician had made in 2015. But while German authorities and journalists are frantically rushing to unearth formal links between their suspect and known terrorist cells, the fact that the man identified only as “Stephan E.” has claimed to have acted alone should provide Germany with pause for thought.

That’s because his act of ‘lone wolf’ violence is symptomatic of the changing nature of German right-wing terrorism. In contrast to the National Socialist Underground of 2000 to 2007 (for example), acts of extreme right-wing violence are no longer isolated, aberrant events that can be pinned on specific neo-Nazi gangs. Increasingly, they’re not coming from ‘outside’ the German political system, and are often not the result of politically abnormal groups coaxing new members and subjecting them to indoctrination. Rather, they’re a manifestation of the current German political climate, which has witnessed a steady increase in extremist political and cultural activity over the past few years, facilitated by the rise of social media, exacerbated by a sense of political neglect, and coinciding with 2015’s significant increase in immigration.

Such a view is backed up by a significant December study published in the Perspectives on Terrorism journal. Written by Dr Daniel Koehler of the German Institute on Radicalization and De-Radicalization Studies (GIRDS), it asserts that most extreme acts of right-wing violence in Germany are the result of ‘hive terrorism’, in which “more or less ordinary persons without previous ties to extremist groups and movements [get] caught up in severe, but more or less spontaneous, plots or acts of violence.”

Tellingly, this paper cites a 2018 intelligence analysis on the backgrounds of 77 individuals involved in recent cases of extreme rightwing terrorism, and notes that the majority of perpetrators “were completely unknown to the security agencies before the attacks or their involvement in plots.” Not only that, but their attacks “were also mostly carried out impulsively, with a distinct lack of preparation and sophistication.”

The study demonstrates that most perpetrators without formal links to terror networks regularly consume “extreme rightwing subcultural products like music and literature,” while they also voice xenophobic or racist views, for example on social media or by taking part in anti-immigration rallies.” And such activities have increased since the post-2015 rise in immigration, with far-right music events and concerts rising from 55 in 2014 to 199 in 2015 alone.

As a result, Koehler’s article ends by concluding that combating terrorism and extremism “is indeed a ‘whole of society’ endeavour.” It is not something that can be tackled simply by pointing at a single terrorist group or faction and demanding its eradication, but rather something that requires a direct and unflinching confrontation with German society and political discourse at a more fundamental level.

As surveys from Pew Research Center have shown, German citizens exhibit certain tendencies and beliefs to a more pronounced degree than most of their counterparts, and it’s this that needs to be addressed if the threat of extreme right-wing terrorism is to be reduced. For instance, a Pew survey published in April found a big gap between pro-EU and anti-EU German people in terms of satisfaction with the workings of national democracy, with the 43-point difference being the largest witnessed in any major European country.

Dissatisfied individuals need to be accommodated and integrated by German politics, but rather than simply pandering to what may be unacceptable views, there’s clearly space in Germany for anti-immigrant sentiment to be challenged and rectified. Another Pew survey, published in March, discovered revealing inconsistencies in German views on immigration. While 59% of Germans believe that immigrants make their country stronger, 52% also believe that immigrants are more to blame for crime in their country than other groups. It’s such illogical contradictions that need be challenged, and more importantly, that can be challenged, since Germany’s crime rate was recently revealed to be at its lowest since unification, while a November study found that (EU) migrants added 0.2% annually to Germany’s GDP between 2011 and 2016.

On the other hand, the German government passed new immigration laws in June, which attempt to appease anti-immigrant views, given that these new laws make it easier to deport failed asylum seekers. To some extent, this could quell the worst excesses of extreme right-wing sentiment, but there’s also a risk that it could simply encourage the far-right to demand more. This is why it’s doubly important that German political discourse is moved in a more positive direction, one that corrects the distortions of anti-migrant rhetoric, because Walter Lübcke may not be the last German politician who pays the ultimate price for inaction.

L'articolo Walter Lübcke Murder Forces Germany to Confront its Far-Right Problem proviene da InsideOver.

These are difficult times for the European Union project. The United Kingdom has already voted to leave the collective, while across partner nations there are clear signs the far-right are on the rise, growing stronger and bolder.

At the start of May 2019 – in the run up to European Union elections to be held between May 23 and May 26 – an Ipsos poll in France placed Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN or National Rally) ahead of President Macron’s La République en Marche (REM).

But, it is not just in France that the populists are in the ascendency. In the UK, Nigel Farage‘s new anti-EU Brexit Party is also ahead in the polls. In Germany, theAlternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, formed only six years ago, is now the largest opposition grouping in the Bundestag, while the Freedom Party of Austria is in a power-sharing coalition government with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’ Austrian People’s Party.

Known as the ‘alt-right’ – a contraction of ‘alternative and right’ – there are common threads running through these groupings. A shared populism, driven by their anti-immigration, anti-establishment, Eurosceptics appeal to large numbers of their electorate. Policies, attracting ordinary citizens who have come to feel powerless and profoundly disenchanted with their powerful, wealthy political elites. Many, ground down by years of austerity, outraged by terrorist attacks on their sovereign nations, and feeling forgotten, have started to look for ways of showing this unhappiness, and far-right parties have become a vehicle for those who feel politically alienated.

With European Elections set for the end of May (to include an indecisive UK), Matteo Salvini, Deputy Prime Minister of Italy, leader of Lega, and architect of his nation’s anti-immigration policy, has been actively reaching out to other like-minded right-wing groups across the union. Already, six parties, including AfD, have joined, as Salvini openly attempts to form a Eurosceptic, anti-immigration bloc to contest the election as a cohesive unit.

“The advantage of such groupings in the European Parliament,” Erwan Fouéré, Associate Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Studies told InsideOver, “Would be to gain more positions of power, based on their numerical strength; for example, Rapporteurs or Chairpersons of influential committees.”

Mr Salvini has also signed up to American Steve Bannon’s Brussels-based right-wing think-tank: The Movement.

Bannon, former White House strategist in Donald Trump’s administration, and founding member of the far-right Breitbart news, is now turning his sights on Europe.

Registered by Mischaël Modrikamen, leader of Belgium’s People’s Party, on January 17, 2018, The Movement has also attracted support from Italy’s Giorgia Meloni leader of Fratelli d’Italia, and Luigi di Maio who heads the Five Star Movement, coalition partner to Salvini’s League in the Italian government. Positive comments have also come from Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders of the Dutch Party for Freedom and Hungary’s anti-immigration Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

As with Salvini, Bannon is trying to bring Europe’s far-right together under one umbrella organisation. To these ends, he has also secured a monastery in the mountains above Anagni – a town in the province of Frosinone, Central Italy – with the intention of building an academy for future far-right leaders. In February 2019, Bannon appointed Eduardo Bolsonaro (son of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro) as his representative in South America – perhaps suggesting a more global role for his organisation.

But while Bannon might think he has reinvented himself as “Saint Benedict of Nursia”, his efforts have not found unanimous backing from all of Europe’s populists.

Marine Le Pen has sought to soothe the fears of her fellow right-wing by assuring them that Bannon would not lead populist efforts to “Save the real Europe,” noting that he is “American not European.”

Likewise, Alexander Gauland of the anti-immigrant right wing AfD, is not persuaded at all by Mr Bannon’s plans. He also cites his lack of European credentials as a significant difficulty.

Aside from the machinations of a few power-brokers, European or American, how influential could any far-right Eurosceptic alliance become in the European Parliament beyond the May elections?

“The policies espoused by some of these groups are so anathema to the European integration process, and to the fundamental values on which it is based, I would doubt their chances of gaining traction in the forthcoming elections,” Mr Fouéré told me candidly.”But if they do, it would signify a dangerous trend of nationalist, anti-European sentiment.”

In an age of divisions, the far-right have touched a popular seam of discontent – out there – in Europe and beyond, and, as a result, are gathering momentum. As Britain’s decision to leave the European Union has shown, there are no longer any political certainties and all bets are off.

L'articolo Populists Unite: Anti-EU Parties Continue Growing proviene da InsideOver.