Far-Right Returns To German Parliament For First Time Since Hitler
Protestors take to the streets as AfD makes historic gains in Germany
Waves of concern swept over Europe last night as a far-right nationalist party won seats in the German parliament for the first time since the days of Adolf Hitler.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was re-elected for a fourth term during last night’s elections but her victory was a hollow one, as her conservative CDU/CSU party only won 32.7% of the vote – its worst result since 1949, when elections were held in Germany for the first time since World War Two.
Angela Merkel was re-appointed German Chancellor for a fourth term
In contrast, Alternative for Germany (AfD) – a far-right anti-Islam party which has only existed since 2013 – won 12.6% of the vote and 96 seats in the Bundestag, officially becoming the third largest party in the country.
“One million people, foreigners, being brought into this country are taking away a piece of this country and we as AfD don’t want that,” the party’s co-chair Alexander Garland said after the result. “We say I don’t want to lose Germany to an invasion of foreigners from a different culture. Very simple.”
AFD co-lead candidates Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland celebrate the result
The AfD says it wants to safeguard Germany’s culture and denies it is racist or anti-Semitic, but its historic result nevertheless raised the alarm amongst Jewish groups across Europe and the United States.
Ronald Lauder, president of the New York-based World Jewish Congress decried the rise of AfD at a period when anti-Semitism was on the rise across the globe.
“It is abhorrent the AfD party, a disgraceful reactionary movement which recalls the worst of Germany’s past and should be outlaws, now has the ability within the German parliament to promote its vile platform,” he said.
The European Jewish Congress and the Central Council of Jews in Germany urged centrist German parties to remain united in opposing the AfD.
Martin Schulz had stumped for Joseph Muscat during the 2014 MEP election campaign
Last night’s election was also notable in that it saw the near collapse of the German Social Democrats – who, with just 20.2% of the vote, also obtained its worst result since World War II. Its leader Martin Schulz, former president of the European Parliament and a close friend of Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, announced after the result his party would no longer form part of Merkel’s grand coalition government but would return to opposition.
This could now shine a European spotlight on Joseph Muscat, whose Labour Party has now become somewhat of an outlier on the continent.
In 2000, social democrats held the governments of 10 of the 15 then EU member states, but have since crumbled dramatically, particularly in France, Greece, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark and now Germany, and fears are the trend will continue during next spring’s Italian elections.
Joseph Muscat is now one of Europe’s last-standing social democratic leaders
Schulz’s decision to drop out of the government means Malta is now one of only six EU countries to have a centre-left party in government – an outlier along with Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
During an interview with The Economist last year, Muscat said the secret to his success is keeping government intervention in the private sector as minimal as possible, only intervening when there are market failures and social issues.
“One of the problems I think we have as social democrats is that anyone from the right who takes some of our ideas is considered a smart person but if we social democrats take a leaf out of the book, then that makes us traitors,” he said. “I think people are almost naturally attracted to social democratic values. They do not want to risk what they have for some sort of fairy tale. What we are offering here is not a fairy tale, it is realpolitik. We are a centrist disposition with progressive inspirations.”
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