Election penalty for AfD in Hamburg

Berlin

This was to be a strong signal, that of a far-right formation capable of exceeding the symbolic 10% mark in a large, prosperous and multicultural city in western Germany. However, the regional elections in Hamburg on Sunday turned into a sanction for the AfD. According to initial estimates, the Alternative for Germany fell below 5%, recording its worst electoral result in seven years of existence. The party is far from its triumphant score of 23.4% obtained in the Land of Thuringia last October.

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He fell back from his score obtained in Hamburg in 2015, where he had obtained 6.1%, which gave him 6 seats. This city should continue to be led by the alliance between the SPD, which, according to initial estimates, won Sunday 37.5% vote (-8 compared to 2015), and the Greens (25.5%, + 13.2). The CDU scores very poorly with 11.5 (-4.4). The FDP too, which is 5%, down 2.4 points. As a prelude to the debacle, the last campaign meeting of the head of the list of the AfD, Alexander Wolf, had been canceled Friday. The reason invoked was "the political and media cramming and the expected massive counter-demonstrations ".

They are established fascists, racists and Nazis (…), the catalyst for far-right terrorism

The day before, the racist attack in Hanau, near Frankfurt, had killed nine people from immigrant backgrounds. Since then, almost the entire political class has been shooting at the AfD, perceived as the “ political arm ” of a new far-right terrorism across the Rhine, which has made thirteen victims in the past nine months.

" The problem is that the AfD does not set limits, " Wolfgang Schäuble told Handelsblatt on Saturday. The President of the German Parliament, a moral figure in Germany, made reference to the participation of the leader of the AfD in Thuringia in the Islamophobic movement Pegida. Björn Höcke had called last Monday to overthrow the Federal Republic, which he describes as " madhouse ".

"Catalyst"

" They are established fascists, racists and Nazis (...), the catalyst for far-right terrorism ," said Lars Klingbeil, secretary general of the SPD. The social democratic party, CDU's coalition partner of Angela Merkel, demands that the AfD be placed under the surveillance of the intelligence services. This has already been the case for one year for Der Flügel, the current of Björn Höcke, supported by 40% of the members of the party. Lars Klingbeil believes that AfD members should also be excluded from government services.

Unsurprisingly, AfD executives reject any responsibility for the Hanau attack. " It is the delusional act of a madman," reacted on Twitter its leader, Jörg Meuthen. In fact, no direct link has been established between the party and the alleged assailant, a 43-year-old German author of a conspiracy and xenophobic manifesto. But according to the opinion poll published Sunday by Bild am Sonntag , 60% of Germans are convinced that the AfD bears responsibility for violence from the far right. The newspaper notably highlights the party's campaign against shisha bars, accused of being spaces of crime, and targeted by the terrorist on Thursday.

If we believe the poll conducted for RTL after the attack, the AfD would not collect more than 9% of the vote in the event of federal elections, almost four points less than during the 2017 election.