Worries about the economy and migration pushed up share for far-right AfD in Hesse and Bavaria, while coalition parties did worse
German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s fractious centre-left coalition has received a sharp rebuke from voters in the key states of Bavaria and Hesse, with economic woes and immigration fears boosting the opposition conservatives and the far right.
At the elections on Sunday the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party burst out of its post-industrial eastern strongholds to score its best ever result in a western state. Polls showed it on course to be the second largest party in Hesse, home to the financial capital Frankfurt.
All three parties in Scholz’s federal coalition – his Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) – did worse than five years ago in the states, which together account for about a quarter of the German population.
At this rate, Germany or France could very well be the first to fall to a new wave of Fascism. Either AfD are going to land themselves in a strong coalition government because of how badly the CDU fumbled under Merkel’s reign or Le Pen is going to win the next French presidential election because of how deeply unpopular Macron is.
Either outcome would be disastrous for the European Union or even NATO in general. If you thought Britain leaving was bad enough, imagine the EU losing another of its biggest economies. Now imagine that these governments would be pursuing policies in direct opposition to NATO’s ideologies.
This is why capitalists are playing a dangerous game with the economy. 1917 Russia and 1930’s Germany are living proof that people turn to more radical political beliefs in times of hardship.
There’s lots of Germans here on lemmy so I have a question. What exactly is pushing the far right movement other than “immigration fears”? Also how far right is far right? American far right are fucking turbo racists, but as i hear most say EU right would be considered liberal in the US.
As a German, I have absolutely no fucking idea why the AfD is gaining traction right now of all times. Its platform is anti-immigration and also anti-progressivism, which the new government has been doing a bit of, but not much. Maybe it is because there’s been a lot of hostility between the coalition’s parties, but that doesn’t really explain it either.
I would say a lot of people in Germany are feeling left out/alone with their problems.
It’s been like this for at least 10, if not 20 or more years.
Most stuff is lobby and economy driven and we’re getting nowhere.
In came the afd offering easy solutions and appealing to the public (never mind their program stating completely otherwise) so I guess it gave people the feeling of someone doing something and caring for them.
And if not, pissing off the rest of the politicians.
At least the latter is working.
I do not support or condone this behaviour but it is not that hard to read.
And instead of approaching the real current issues (inflation, money issues, buerocracy, environment) directly most parties even try to move further right, to get the afd voters back, which is the worst they could do.
I think your last paragraph is a big part of the problem. Instead of acknowledging that we blundered away the last decades, time critically needed in the transformation of Germany towards a carbon neutral, digital future, the democratic parties are trying to chase the AfD immigration rhetoric. It’s fucking infuriating.
Looking at the election results I think the Greens did remarkably well, in the face of an almost constant hate campaign from conservative media. For me that reads like that there is a good amount of people in Germany ready to tackle the future constructively. The FDP on the other hand lost bad and their take away is not that they fucked up by blocking all initiatives in government but by not being tough enough on immigration. Seriously wtf
Hey Europe. You weren’t supposed to laugh at us Americans and then start mimicking our horseshit.
I blame the FDP holding up any relief spending that could have blunted this
As a German I’m so fucking disappointed by the sheer amount of dipshits in my country…
Someone who doesn’t share your views, aren’t necessarily dipshits. Your attitude is just as bad as those dipshits.
Nazi and right-wing are not synonyms. Your right government are not building concentration camps to gas jews, they are not going for the uber aryan race, they are not going to reintroduce slavery and torture, they are not going to line up people before a wall to get shot, they are not going to start a war to expand their territory.
The word nazi and racist have lost a lot of weight because of incorrectly overly used.
I can tell you’re not happy with it, if they are really that bad, the next election will be different. Just hang on.
