German far-right seen making gains
POTSDAM, Germany: The far-right Alternative for Germany party sees Chancellor Angela Merkel going downhill as it gains ground to upend the country’s political order, France-Presse.
Parliamentary group leader Alexander Gauland said in an interview that the current turmoil showed that the four-year-old AfD had succeeded in its primary goal in September’s general election.
“It’s all downhill for Merkel now and that is partly our achievement,” Gauland said, sipping a glass of rose wine at a lakeside Italian restaurant in the eastern city of Potsdam.
“Her time is up - we want her to leave the political stage,” he added.
The AfD campaigned on the slogan “Merkel must go”, railing against her decision to let in more than one million mainly Muslim asylum seekers since 2015.
Its election score was nearly 13 percent, snatching millions of votes from the mainstream parties and entering parliament for the
Although Merkel won a fourth term, she has thus far been unable to cobble together a ruling majority - an unprecedented impasse in German post-war politics.
The crisis could trigger snap elections. Yet despite polls indicating that the gridlock could lift the AfD to an even stronger result, Gauland, 76, seemed reserved about heading back into electoral battle.
“It is not up to us to call new elections and we aren’t asking for them, but we are prepared for them,” he said.
“None of us is hoping for that with great enthusiasm, but we would probably make gains,” Gauland added.
Polls indicate that both Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc and the rival Social Democrats would shed support if voters were called back to the ballot box.
‘ Voice to people’s fears’
With his trademark tweed jackets and reading glasses, Gauland cultivates the look of an English country gentleman and expresses pride over the support his anti-immigration message has received from pockets
In May he sparked outrage by saying that while German fans love star and Ghanaian father, “they don’t want
With the German economy humming and unemployment at a record low, the AfD has zeroed in on identity as a rallying cry.
Gauland, a former CDU member, acknowledged that meant playing to deep anxieties and resentments, particularly in the former communist east, about a multicultural Germany.