Germany’s
AfD prepares 2017 assault on Merkel and Co.
Can
the far-right party appeal to the mainstream? It will try at a
congress in Stuttgart this weekend.
By JANOSCH DELCKER
4/29/16, 5:35 AM CET
http://www.politico.eu/article/germanys-afd-prepares-2017-assault-on-merkel-cdu-spd-poaching-voters/
BERLIN — The
Alternative for Germany (AfD) has picked off non-voters and scored
successes in local elections, but the rapidly growing far-right party
is now turning its attention to poaching supporters from Angela
Merkel’s conservatives and their Social Democrat allies in pursuit
of the main prize: federal elections in 2017.
At a party congress
in Stuttgart this weekend, the motley crew of malcontents united by
their dissatisfaction with mainstream German politics will try to
agree on a party manifesto going beyond their usual bugbears of
immigration, Islam and the euro.
Referencing the
18th-century Sturm und Drang movement, which promoted the ideal of
wild young things venting their raw emotions, deputy party chief
Alexander Gauland described the current state of the party as “young
and stormy.”
“Ideally, we’ll
manage to give ourselves a clear idea of what we stand for this
weekend,” Gauland, the party’s tweedy 75-year-old elder statesman
who was a CDU party member for 40 years, told POLITICO.
After a strong
performance in three regional elections in March, the AfD has scored
between 10 and 14 percent in opinion polls in recent weeks, which if
reproduced in federal elections could potentially make it the third
biggest party after the CDU and SPD.
The SPD in
particular looks rife for poaching: facing the worst crisis in its
post-war history.
Not bad for a party
founded in 2013 with the very specific aim of protesting against the
largely German-funded bailouts for over-indebted eurozone countries
like Greece.
With debt crisis
headlines ceding to the refugee crisis, the AfD’s Euroskeptic focus
has faded along with the departure of its co-founder Bernd Lucke, an
economics professor, last year. The party increasingly campaigns on
an ultra-conservative platform tackling issues such as Merkel’s
open-doors policy on refugees from Syria, the role of Islam in
Western society, and a return to traditional “family values.”
“We’re fishing
in many waters,” acknowledged Gauland.
Openings on the
right
“The AfD is
expanding its reach,” said Sebastian Friedrich, a social scientist
and author of a book about the party. “It continues to mobilize
non-voters, but at the same time it’s trying to win over new voters
from Germany’s established mainstream parties.”
To focus minds and
sharpen its strategy, AfD delegates must turn the leadership’s
75-page draft document into a manifesto at this weekend’s 1-1/2 day
congress, taking into account 1,400 pages of amendments submitted by
party members.
The goal is to focus
on areas where the AfD has the greatest potential to win over voters
from Germany’s mainstream parties, especially Merkel’s CDU, its
Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, and their
center-left partners in the chancellor’s “grand coalition,” the
SPD.
The SPD in
particular looks rife for poaching: facing the worst crisis in its
post-war history, with less than 20 percent support in recent polls,
much of its membership feels it has lost touch with its core values
of social justice and workers’ rights.
Merkel has made it
clear recently that she has no intention of imitating the AfD’s
ultra-conservative platform in order to win back voters.
Alternative fur
Deutschland
One senior SPD
official in the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, said the AfD
had succeeded in mobilizing the protest vote among people who had
stayed away from the ballots in recent elections, rather than winning
over active Social Democrats. But the official, speaking on condition
of anonymity, acknowledged that the SPD needed to do a better job of
mobilizing non-voters if it wanted to get back on its feet.
“Among the
non-voters mobilized by the AfD are those who used to vote for the
SPD and whom the Social Democrats lost over the last two decades,”
said Friedrich.
The right wing of
the AfD, grouped around Gauland, and an ultranationalist camp focused
on regional party chief Björn Höcke, are particular eager to tap
into this part of the electorate. They have excised some of the
liberal economists’ demands, such as abolishing unemployment
benefits, from the draft manifesto and will push issues considered to
be working class, such as measures to combat poverty among the
elderly, at the congress.
Another major
grouping, which is formed around family values campaigner Jörg
Meuthen, has a focus on winning over the more conservative sectors of
Merkel’s Christian Democrats where there is concern that the
chancellor has hollowed out the CDU’s traditional profile with
policies like the refugee response and her measures to support
working mothers.
“The CDU has made
clear that it will continue its modernization course to the left,”
said Gauland, who held various offices within the CDU and left in
2011 because “the CDU had lost its soul with Angela Merkel,” as
he wrote in a newspaper opinion piece. “This leaves [opportunities
for the AfD] on the right.”
Sticking to the
center
Merkel, who until
recently appeared determined to simply ignore the rise of the AfD,
has made it clear recently that she has no intention of imitating the
AfD’s ultra-conservative platform in order to win back voters.
At a closed-door
meeting with senior CDU officials in her chancellory in Berlin 1-1/2
weeks ago, an invited pollster presented statistics affirming that
the CDU had not primarily lost voters to the AfD. The party’s main
problem, the pollster said, was that its aging electorate was simply
dying out.
His conclusion was
that the CDU must continue shaping a more modern image to reach out
to a new electorate, for instance urban voters with a modern
lifestyle who still have conservative values — in other words, it
should stick to Merkel’s strategy.
“The CDU feels
vindicated that it has and will maintain its place in the political
center,” the CDU’s general secretary Peter Tauber told reporters.
Privately, some CDU
officials are less certain of this course. One high-ranking party
member in the Bundestag said she was concerned that while it was
important to open up the party to a modern electorate, the CDU should
not lose sight of its core, traditional values.
Such doubts have the
AfD scenting blood.
“In the CDU they
don’t know what they stand for any more,” said deputy AfD leader
Gauland. “The CDU actually just stands for Frau Merkel, and that’s
it.”
Authors:
Janosch Delcker
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