Merkel defeated on home turf: Europe’s nationalist surge continues

Afd - MV poster 2016

Europe’s most powerful ‘conservative’ leader – German Chancellor Angela Merkel – was humiliated a fortnight ago by a new nationalist party in elections for the regional parliament of her home area Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. This weekend she faces further problems in Berlin, Germany’s capital.

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is on the north-east border of today’s Germany (though many traditional ethnic German areas are further east, presently within the borders of Poland or Russia).  It includes Rostock and several other Hanseatic ports whose trading agreements were the origins of the modern German state: the regional parliament (or Landtag) is in the medieval city of Schwerin.

As elsewhere in Merkel’s Germany, economic crisis has been exacerbated by the flood of immigrants – encouraged by a supposedly ‘conservative’ chancellor and her government.  Both in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and nationwide, government is a coalition of Merkel’s CDU-CSU and the social democratic SPD.

In other words Germans have the equivalent of a Tory-Labour coalition, eagerly promoting immigration and ‘one-worldism’!

Understandably German voters have increasingly turned against this wicked betrayal.  Just over three years ago a new party was created called ‘Alternative for Germany’ (Alternative für Deutschland – AfD).  At first this was a milder version of our UKIP, focused on calls for reform of the EU rather than withdrawal, and careful not to say anything too ‘extreme’ about immigration.

AfD leader Frauke Petry with her partner and MEP Marcus Pretzell: they have sought an alliance between AfD and Marine Le Pen's French National Front

AfD leader Frauke Petry with her partner and MEP Marcus Pretzell: they have sought an alliance between AfD and Marine Le Pen’s French National Front

However, as detailed in several recent issues of Heritage and Destiny, the AfD has moved in a significantly more radical direction over the past year or so under its new leader Frauke Petry.  Ignoring the usual smears, the party has continued to pick up support.

The elections on September 4th were the first time that AfD had contested the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern landtag – and for the first time nationwide the party finished ahead of Merkel’s CDU!

The SPD was in first place (as at the previous election in 2011) but its vote fell from 35.6% to 30.6%.  AfD was in second place with 20.8% in the party’s first campaign for this landtag.  The CDU vote dropped from 23% to 19%, while the neo-Marxist ‘Left Party’ (Die Linke) was down from 18.4% to 13.2%.

Two parties dropped out of the landtag after their vote fell below the 5% threshold.  The Greens are down from 8.7% to 4.8%, while the nationalist NPD (many of whose votes went to AfD) lost half its support: down from 6% to 3%.  Germany’s once powerful liberal party the FDP once again failed to gain seats after polling 3%, as in 2011.

In terms of landtag seats the SPD-CDU coalition will be able to continue, though with a much smaller majority.  Theoretically the two left of centre parties – SPD and Left – would also have (just) sufficient MPs for a coalition, but fear of association with communism still prevents the SPD from admitting its ideological kinship with Die Linke.

Despite its success in this election, the AfD would not have the numbers to form a governing coalition in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with the CDU.  But this result will add to the pressure on Chancellor Merkel from within her own party, especially from the CDU’s Bavarian sister party CSU, in advance of next year’s federal elections.

A week after this shock advance, AfD achieved more modest results in local council elections across Lower Saxony, and this weekend sees elections to the Berlin landtag, again governed by a “grand coalition” between SPD and CDU.  Here nationalists have traditionally been much weaker – the NPD polled only 2.5% in 2011.  Again the CDU could be pushed into third place, though probably by the Greens, with the AfD not far behind.

 

AfD's Mecklenburg-Vorpommern leader Leif-Erik Holm (right) celebrates with fellow campaigners including Brandenburg AfD chairman Alexander Gauland (left).

AfD’s Mecklenburg-Vorpommern leader Leif-Erik Holm (right) celebrates with fellow campaigners including Brandenburg AfD chairman Alexander Gauland (left).