THE European Union’s open-door immigration policy has been delivered a resounding “no” with the German nationalist-populist party the Alternative for Germany (AfD) winning 44% of the vote in the state election of Saxony-Anhalt.
While short of an overall majority, the AfD won 44% of the vote, massively out-polling Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU conservatives, who won only 15 seats on 17%, followed by the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left Party each with eight seats and BSW with five.
The AfD win sounds a sombre warning to Australia’s mainstream parties as One Nation rides a wave of public popularity. Even Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has acknowledged the rise of populist, nationalist parties worldwide.
Reuters news agency slyly stated that the result “put a far-right party within reach of power at the state level for the first time since World War 2”, aligning the AfD with the Nazis without directly stating it.
Despite winning 39 seats in the 83 seat parliament, it faces the prospect of being kept out of power by a coalition of the other four major contestants – the SPU, the Greens, the Left Party and the BSW – all of whom and the CDU have taken a vow of political correctness not to go into coalition with the AfD.
As explained by Dr Steve Turley, it’s known as “the firewall” but is little more than a gimmick of the Left to control the conservative CDU and isolate the AfD.
Turley says the tactic backfired and the AfD is now among the top two or three most popular parties in all of the German states.
Two years ago in Thuringa state the AfD also achieved the leading popular vote, but not the extent of this latest win.
Saxony-Anhalt, which has historic links to Martin Luther, has a relatively small population of 2.1 million and the AfD in the state is assessed by domestic intelligence services as “right-wing extremist”, a classification rejected by Siegmund and a large segment of the population.
Beatrix von Storch, deputy parliamentary leader of the AfD, told the BBC her party intended to hold talks to secure the support of members of parliament from other parties, who included individuals within the CDU group in the state parliament, who she said were “very, very unhappy with their own party”.
She added that parties which continued to refuse to work with the AfD and did not accept the vote of the people risked “severe chaos and a new election”.