"Alternative for Germany" won a lot of votes in the elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, but remains out of power. The reason - the "cordon sanitaire" around a party with openly Nazi sympathies.
The "Alternative for Germany" (AfD), parts of which are "proven right-wing extremist, managed to win a significant number of votes in the elections in the states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and in the capital Berlin, but will probably remain in opposition in both places.
In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the AfD became the strongest party with 38.2 percent, according to the preliminary results, ahead of the Social Democrats of the current Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig. The party's co-chairman Tino Krupää said even before the first predictions for the public ARD were announced: “Here we have a very clear mandate to form a government“. He announced that his party would offer negotiations to all parties and said that he expected Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz to resign. “That would really be a relief for this country”, Krupää added.
In the local elections in Berlin, the “Alternative” also saw growth, but fell far short of its own expectations: with just over 16 percent of the vote, the party fell short of its goal of becoming the first political force.
Weidel: “We are the new people's party!”
Since the Christian Democrats suffered heavy losses in both elections, the chairwoman AfD leader Alice Weidel has already spoken of her party as the "new people's party in Germany." Weidel has criticized Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrats for strictly distinguishing themselves from the AfD: "We are negotiating because we have not erected any health cordons."
Especially after the AfD's triumph in the state of Saxony-Anhalt on September 6, where it fell just short of an absolute majority, it has become clear that it will have difficulty finding political allies. And at this point, no party seems ready to form a coalition with the AfD.
Impossible majorities
The leading candidate of the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Sigmund, had stated categorically that he only wanted to lead a stable AfD government. During the election campaign, he went even further and repeatedly stated that he only sees himself as prime minister in a government made up entirely of the “Alternative for Germany”.
Since then, it has been unclear exactly what his party is aiming for. Forming a government in the state is going poorly. Alice Weidel is believed to have ambitions to succeed Friedrich Merz as chancellor. She was already her party's candidate for chancellor in the last Bundestag elections. Many senior AfD officials clearly see her in this role in the future. And if her party manages to form a state government led by the “Alternative for Germany”, this will give her candidacy a boost.
However, the party's rise has also been accompanied by growing protests. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin, numerous coalitions have mobilized against the AfD.
Scandals also during the election campaign campaign
„Alternative" had to suffer heavy blows even before the elections. For example, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, one of the politicians nominated by the AfD had to withdraw his candidacy after it became known that he had been convicted of bank robbery. Another withdrew because he had been caught driving under the influence, for which his driver's license was taken away. In Berlin, shortly before the elections, it became known that one of the associates of the leading AfD candidate had been found to have drugs and Nazi artifacts.
In the past, the AfD has attracted attention more than once for its closeness to National Socialism. One of its members of the European Parliament posed with his hand on his heart in front of the so-called "Führer" bunker, and another of its representatives, who is a member of the Bundestag, is described as the "friendly face of National Socialism". The chairman of the “Alternative for Germany” in Thuringia, Björn Höcke was twice sentenced to large fines for using a slogan from Hitler's Nazi SA stormtroopers.