The left dont like lossing
AFD at 22 percent – ​​the growing panic of the German rulers
Published 14 July 2023 at 07:53
FOREIGN. Alternatives for Germany soar in the polls. Almost one in four Germans now chooses the anti-immigration party - which is treated as a pariah by that country's establishment.

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Inflation, continued uncontrolled mass immigration from the Third World and arms deliveries fueling the war in Ukraine.

The Germans are starting to tire of their rulers - which is now clearly visible in the opinion polls.

Alternative for Germany, AFD, has seen its support increase very sharply recently. And in the latest survey from Ipsos, the party reaches a record level of 22 percent.

That's an increase of three percentage points in just one month. AFD is now clearly larger than the Social Democrats, and is in second place if you count the votes of the two Christian Democratic parties together.

Germans have rarely been "as dissatisfied with developments in the country as they are today", states Robert Grimm, head of research at Ipsos.

- The country is in an economic imbalance, and there are no immediate solutions in sight for what the population is worried about - inflation, rising rents, falling real wages, the Ukraine war and migration, says Grimm, according to The Local .

The Ipsos expert also states that the government's "unconstructive handling" of AFD's successes in the eastern part of the country and the "frequent generalization of its electorate" as right-wing extremists have only made the party even more popular.

Last month, Robert Sesselmann became the first AFD politician to win an election to a regional council in Germany. Thuringia's state government responded by trying to stop the elected politician from taking office by launching a "democracy investigation" into Sesselmann and his values. This was forced to back down, but the measure was seen by many Germans as an attack on democracy and may have further strengthened AFD's support.

Germany's Social Democratic President Frank-Walter Steinmeier describes the AFD's record numbers as "worrying".

In an interview with ZDF, he says that the opinion figures "should not lead us to automatically classify every critical issue as populism and right-wing extremism".

He suggests that AFD addresses issues that many people expect answers to, such as inflation, immigration and the Ukraine war.

- These are issues that politics must deal with, says Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

At the same time, however, Steinmeier accuses the AFD of having contributed to the "brutalization of the debate".