As of: January 29, 2024, 5:58 p.m
By: Kathrin Braun
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This is Cologne: Erdogan supporters cheer their idol at a performance in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2018.
dpa © Henning Kaiser
Erdogan fans are founding a branch of the Turkish AKP party in this country - and want to enter the EU Parliament.
The party sprouted up just before the citizenship reform: Many more Turks will soon be eligible to vote in Germany.
Munich – No other country has spent so long trying to become a member of the EU.
And no other candidate country is so far away from being accepted today.
Nevertheless, an Erdogan party could soon sit in the EU Parliament: Apparently there are plans to found an AKP branch in Germany - the party is called “DAVA” (Democratic Alliance for Diversity and Awakening) and is already running for the European elections on June 9th. June to get votes.
“Bild am Sonntag” has a founding statement: According to this, there are four top candidates.
This includes the Hamburg doctor Mustafa Yoldas (53), who has been put on record by the Federal Ministry of the Interior for “supporting Hamas”.
The Lower Saxony doctor Ali Ihsan Ünlü, an official of the Turkish organization DITIB, and the Solingen lawyer Fatih Zingal (44), a former member of the SPD, were also among them.
Teyfik Özcan (42), also a former SPD member, is to become party leader.
All men are close to the AKP.
Islam expert Ahmad Mansour has been warning about the influence of political Islam in Germany for years.
“The fact that Erdogan-affiliated parties like DAVA are emerging is a symptom of a much bigger problem: Muslims in Germany are moving away and alienating themselves from our values,” the author and psychologist told our newspaper.
The founding of the party is just one “of many attempts” by Erdogan to change politics in Germany and Europe.
Mansour doubts that DAVA will “become a strong party in the short term” – but that could definitely change in the long term.
Mansour: The AfD's deportation plans are like fire accelerant
“Since the Hamas attack on October 7th, we have been facing a wave of radicalization in the Muslim community in Germany,” says Mansour.
“German politicians have not managed to win these people over.” The deportation plans of German and Austrian right-wing extremists acted like an accelerant.
He says that now is “exactly the right time” for DAVA to get these voters on their side.
The party is specifically positioning itself as a migrant party, but without making any concrete offers.
According to “Bild am Sonntag”, she calls for “a pragmatic and ideology-free refugee policy”, draws attention to everyday discrimination and wants “people with foreign roots to be granted their rights in full”.
Double pass could play into DAVA's hands
The political scientist Inci Öykü Yener-Roderburg does not currently believe it is realistic for a party “that was only founded a few months before the election” to enter the EU Parliament - even if there are no five-member parliamentary elections compared to federal and state elections. There is a percentage hurdle.
Similar AKP branches have not been successful in the past.
“But this could be important for the next elections, especially in light of the new citizenship law.”
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The traffic light would like to make naturalization and dual citizenship easier for foreigners from April.
There are currently around 1.5 million Turks living in Germany without a German passport - they are the largest foreign population group.
For them, demand for a double pass is expected to be particularly high.
Then Erdogan fans could vote for the Turkish president twice: in their home country the AKP and in this country the DAVA.
Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) is alarmed: they are trying to "exercise direct influence on the European Parliament," he tells the "Welt".
He wants to consider a ban.
CSU boss Markus Söder also reacts critically.
“Extra parties are a sign of de-integration,” he says.
People with a migrant background should get involved in existing democratic parties.
Söder also warns that the traffic light's new citizenship law could give an AKP offshoot a particular boost.