While the CDU/CSU parties still have difficulties in persuading their voters not to turn to the far-right AfD, the Social Democrats (SPD) are also facing similar difficulties in losing their voter base to the Green Party.
” During last week’s meeting in one of Germany’s state parliaments, that is to say in a “Landtag,” which is the legislative body of a federal state in Germany, a member of the far-right AfD party triggered a tumult.
Here are seven challenges for Karrenbauer: 1) intra-party reconciliation between different camps, 2) clarifying relations with Merkel, 3) setting future goals and the agenda, 4) positioning the CDU vis-à-vis the AfD, 5) winning back votes lost to the Green Party, 6) starting a new dialogue with the CSU, 7) mobilizing the party for the upcoming elections.
According to a poll in Germany, the results of which were announced in October, AfD has for the first time reached 18% of total votes, and with SPD's votes decreasing to 15%, the AfD has become the second most popular party in Germany after the Christian Democrats.
The party is increasingly shifting to the right due to the rise of the far right and populist AfD, which will most likely enter the Bavarian parliament, as it has not already entered the federal parliaments of various states but has also entered the federal parliament of Germany, the Bundestag.
Furthermore, the far-rightist AfD party, which is actually the main parliamentary opposition in Germany, also opposed the planned visit by bringing the visit in relation with potential and alleged conflicts within the Turkish community in Germany.
At a time where the far-right AfD has become the second strongest party according to recent polls, both discussions about Germany’s potential nuclear ambitions and proposals by CDU circles to think about the re-establishment of the national military service/conscription, may underpin the already nationalist discourse and play into the hands of the AfD.
But due to the fact that the right-wing populist AfD became the main opposition party –which is a setback for German democracy– politics became more complex henceforth.
While these statements belong to a member of a political party – who call themselves social-democrats – this kind of rhetoric only resembles the mentality of the far right and extremist parties, such as the AfD.
Racists and extreme right voters started to prefer an actual racist party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which, according to recent polls, receives 15 percent of the votes.
Since the foundation and particularly since the success of the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the September 2017 general election, this populist discourse has literally boomed.
The SPD’s initial unwillingness to talk with the CDU/CSU has been based on the fact that the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) would then be the main opposition party in the federal parliament.
With the rising right, including AfD in Germany and the National Front in France, the question of whether secularism (or what the French call lacïté) in France is feeding anti-Muslim sentiment and whether the notion of secularism itself is becoming republican authoritarianism has re-risen on the agenda.
While the anti-Turkey left in Germany ran propaganda against the AK Party government, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) slammed Chancellor Angela Merkel for the refugee agreement signed with Turkey.