Germany: Far-right overtakes Scholz’s SPD in new poll
By Nick Alipour | EURACTIV.com
Est. 5min Jun 9, 2023 (updated: Jun 12, 2023)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz attends a press conference with Ducth Prime Minister Rutte (not pictured) in the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen where a consultation between Dutch and German cabinets is taking place, in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 27 March 2023. The cabinets of both countries try to meet annually, mainly to strengthen mutual ties. [EPA-EFE/SEM VAN DER WAL]
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In Germany, the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is gaining popularity, with a recent poll putting it in second place – ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD.
A YouGov poll published on Friday (9 June) found that 20% of German voters would give their vote to the far-right AfD, making it the second-strongest party behind the CDU (28%) and ahead of Scholz’s SPD (19%).
The AfD was originally founded as a Eurosceptic outfit, in recent years shifting to the populist right with a focus on migration. Since the beginning of the year, it has experienced an unexpected surge in popularity, overtaking the Greens, another member of Scholz’s three-way coalition, in mid-April, according to polls.
“We have a unique selling proposition. As opposed to everyone else, we say that sanctions don’t mean harm for Russia but for our own population,” Tino Chrupalla, co-chair of the party, told ZDF.
Migration back on the agenda
This is in part due to the resurfacing of migration in public discourse, Uwe Jun, political scientist at the University of Trier, told EURACTIV.
“The topic of migration has recently become much more important again and when that topic is on top of the agenda, the AfD always surges in polls,” Jun told EURACTIV.
“The reason is that a considerable number of people are sympathetic to the AfD stance on the matter. There is no majority among Germans in favour of liberal migration policies but rather an inclination towards a more restrictive position,” he explained.
The number of asylum claims in Germany has increased by 80% between January and March 2023 compared to the same period last year, according to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees.
Party popularity
Jun also sees the reason for the AfD’s success in the lack of popularity of the so-called “traffic-light” coalition. The SPD, Greens and FDP have enmeshed themselves in prickly infighting over energy policy and spending. According to several polls, the coalition no longer has a majority.
“The protest vote plays a role when a government does not manage to satisfy voters with its politics – and that is currently the public perception of the traffic-light coalition,” Jun said.
The current success of the party is yet not at all unprecedented. In 2017, at the first federal election after the migration crisis of 2015, the AfD raked in 12.6% of votes, making it the largest opposition party in parliament. Moreover, a national poll saw it in second place ahead of the SPD at 18% in 2018.
“This worries me,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said about the AfD’s most poll surge in an interview with broadcaster RTL. Avoiding talking about evident problems, however, would be the “first big mistake that one could make”.
The opposition has resorted to blaming the coalition for the AfD’s strong poll ratings with increasingly shrill statements. Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU, the largest opposition party, drew attention last weekend when he tweeted that “every gendered newscast means another 100 votes for the AfD”.
Current polls are also an embarrassment for Merz himself, as he implied in an interview during his first campaign for the party leadership that he would be able to “halve” the AfD’s vote share.
Geographical differences
There are also stark geographical disparities regarding the popularity of the party: the AfD is the most popular party at 32% among voters in the regional states in Germany’s east, which used to belong to the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR), a Forsa poll from earlier this week shows – compared to 13% in the rest of the country.
“The AfD is particularly popular in Eastern Germany because the population is more sceptical towards migration and there is a higher potential regarding protest votes,” says Jun.
This development will be of particular interest in the run-up to a series of regional elections in Eastern Germany in 2024. In Saxony, where voters will go to the polls next autumn, the AfD managed to score 27.5%, coming second behind the CDU in 2019.
However, the extent to which the AfD’s recent surge in polls will have electoral consequences remains to be seen.
“There is sometimes a so-called bandwagon effect, meaning that when a party is popular, some people support it because of its greater popularity. It is hard to say if this is playing a role at the moment as well,” Jun said.
He argues that it “depends on many factors” and is “hard to predict at this point” whether the party will manage to translate its temporary high into tangible success.
[Edited by Oliver Noyan/Nathalie Weatherald]
Germany: Far-right overtakes Scholz’s SPD in new poll – EURACTIV.com |
