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From the stand almost 21 percent in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 2016, second strongest force. In Saxony-Anhalt 2016 from zero to almost 25 percent, just behind the CDU. Entry into the Bundestag as the strongest opposition party in 2017. Strongest force in Saxony in the general election. And again at the European elections in May this year.
Who in view of the AfD results in the parliamentary elections this Sunday speaks of a break for our country, it should be remembered: The break has long since taken place. What can be observed in Saxony and Brandenburg is worse. The right triumph becomes normal in the East.
The symbolic worst case did not occur. Neither in Saxony nor in Brandenburg are the outer right front. This is not good for reassurance. Only in the final meters, the incumbent Prime Minister seem to have played their official bonus still. If that's what it was, there may have been a tactical anti-AfD movement on Election Day that has benefited the leading ruling parties.
And yet, in both countries, the AfD lands well over 20 percent. A party with a partially racial-racist orientation is establishing itself at the grassroots level.
( The results in detail : here from Saxony and here from Brandenburg.)
Once again, neo-Nazi contacts and open racism may be the reason for some to choose the AfD, many do not care at least, they choose the AfD anyway. On the one hand, that's hard to bear and understand. On the other hand, this is also where the opportunity for the democratic parties, who have so far failed to find answers to the competition from the far right, lies.
The AfD may have gathered a certain core voters over the years. But still applies: Who chooses AfD, who chooses mainly protest. Many AFD voters do not want Andreas Kalbitz or Jörg Urban to become prime ministers. You may not even know the right-wing top staff.
FELIPE TRUEBA / EPA-EFE / REX
AfD supporters celebrate the result in Brandenburg
These are people who have long since ceased to feel represented by the grand coalition in Berlin. Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they are still reclining and misunderstood by the ignorant West. This is exactly where the AfD starts, claiming to complete the turnaround. Whether there is an AfD national association dominated by the "wing" or not - many voters do not care.
These voters are not lost. But appealing to reason only shortly before each election will not be enough. It is important to brand the AfD as a party tolerating right-wing extremists in their ranks, but even that does not seem to scare off most.
It is good that all other parties are in agreement to keep the AfD out of the government, even if it requires unusual coalitions. Just as a habit, they must not be.
Kretschmer has found a way
In Saxony probably CDU, Greens and SPD have to go together, in Thuringia is even talked about a four-party alliance, in Brandenburg, the CDU chief even flirted with the Left Party. Even if this connection does not come - the AfD voters are likely to feel confirmed by such constellations with the appearance of a unity government: They are doing everything to ensure that my party does not come to power! Therefore, there is no reason to breathe a sigh just because the AfD has again been prevented as the strongest force.
The right-wing populists are not expected to receive any political prescriptions from the others. But what could that be?
The SPD would have a few topics, such as the basic pension, or the property tax, which would affect almost exclusively West Germans. But the SPD is occupied with itself and massively lost credibility in the east - thank Hartz IV. The Left was once the Eastern party par excellence, but it now pays the price of government because, after years of responsibility, it has long been part of the establishment. The function of a protest party has taken over the AfD. The Greens are happy to even gain a foothold in the East, after all, they can possibly co-govern in both countries in the future. The FDP does not matter at all.
Remains the CDU: In Saxony, she had a subscription to the victory, she has become haughty and now has to fight for their supremacy. After all, she kept the AfD at a distance this time. Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer has put on a considerable final spurt, he has talked fuzzy for weeks, quarreled with voters, argued, can be insulted. In the end, he even found a clear course against the AfD.
Maybe that brought a few dots in the end. Maybe that's the way to really get people out, as they say. But that's not a political course. That is something the Union needs to seriously worry about after the elections.
The fact that the next red-red-green coalition could rule in Bremen to Bremen provides the necessary pressure. A left-wing power option and a union that must oppose and at the same time delineate itself to the very outermost - so could at least at federal level, a campaign of clear alternatives, which is not only focused on keeping the AfD as small as possible.
