Upstart AFD places ahead of the Chancellor’s CDU in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
by Bric Butler
Only a few years ago chancellor Merkel was enjoying approval ratings north of 60%; quite impressive for an incumbent chancellor in her 3rd term. Not long ago, her popularity was suspected to bring her a 4th term in the 2017 national elections as she carried her party, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), to victory. The Alternative for Deutschland (AFD), a populist, upstart, right-wing party founded only a handful of years before in 2013, wasn’t even the slightest afterthought in the political class of Germany.
Now fast-forward…
In the summer of 2015, Germany underwent a massive refugee crisis. Many came from war-torn Syria, but also many others came from North Africa and other areas of the Middle East taking advantage of the chaos. The chancellor’s open door policy of asylum led to the aggregation of over 1 million refugees resettling within German borders. Since then, throughout the remainder of the year and into the present of 2016, the Germans have had to deal with increasing conflicts from cultural clash, logistical and resource issues for migrant camps, and terrorist attacks; two of which were recently committed by Islamic refugees.
This chaos in a year’s time took Merkel’s approval ratings to a record low of 47% and a major blow to her party in her own home state’s elections this past week. As the polls closed and the results came in, the Socialist Democratic Party (SDP), popular in the east, won the plurality of the vote with 30.3%, but the anti-immigration AfD pulled in an impressive 21.8% wile the chancellor’s center-right CDU straggled to the finish line with only 19%: their worst showing in the state since the party’s founding in 1945.
This surge of right-wing populist success has been growing across Europe: in France with the growth of Marine Le Pen’s National Front and in Britain with UKIP’s Brexit vote. Yet in Germany, where the national psyche has been particularly scared by the ghosts of right-wing governments past, such success has not been predicted. Regardless of the surprise, this is bad news for Merkel and the CDU, who now are fearing a fall of their government coalition after next year’s upcoming elections.
Yet for those wary of this surge of the right, good news can be found. This surge of populism does not indict Germany of ugly racism or the resurrection of fascism. After all, the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), often described as Neo-Nazi, was knocked out of the state legislature after falling below the 5% threshold needed for representation in the parliament. Yet for Chancellor Merkel and the CDU, there isn’t good news at all. They are now in fear of a fall of their government coalition after next year’s upcoming elections. A once-stable government is now teetering on the edge.
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