CONFIDENT of a strong showing, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-wing populist party, splurged on a visually impressive venue to watch the results of an election in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania on September 4th. Its candidates and supporters gathered in a thatched-roof beach house on a lakeside in Schwerin, overlooking the castle that houses the state assembly. “We tack into the wind,” ran the message on the sail of a boat on the water. And how the cheers went up when the exit polls came in. The party won 21.9% of the vote, putting it second after the Social Democrats (SPD), which got 30.2%—and beating the Christian Democrats (CDU) of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who got just 19%.
This result is the latest in a string of advances for the AfD. It has no hope of entering a governing coalition anywhere in Germany; other parties view it as toxic. Instead, it positions itself as collecting protest votes against a politically correct elite. It will now be represented in nine of Germany’s 16 federal state parliaments. “Finally there is a real opposition again,” bellowed Leif-Erik Holm, the party’s top candidate in Mecklenburg, to his cheering supporters in the beach...Continue reading
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