Far-Right and Left face off for the future of German politics

It was the battle of the loudspeakers. Just as the far-Right AfD – the Alternative for Germany party – began its rally, Left-wing protesters pulled up a van with rival speakers.

Thunderous techno music from Leftists decked out in bandanas and Palestinian headscarves drowned out the other side.

Speakers resorted to shouting, their voices cracking with emotion, and ever more furious gesticulation. It was a perfect illustration of a fracturing German political system landscape, played out against the magnificent backdrop of Magdeburg’s 13th-century cathedral.

Parties that used to be on the fringes, like the AfD on the Right and the Greens on the Left, are emerging as serious forces, leaving the traditional parties fighting to cling on to power.

A poll has the AfD in first place in regional elections today in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt that will be seen as a bellwether for September’s general elections, when Germany will choose a successor to Angela Merkel.

The AfD is unlikely to win regional power – it does not have the support to win a majority and no other party is willing to go into coalition with it – but if it did come first it would send shock waves through German politics and panic among Mrs Merkel’s CDU, the Christian Democrats, that has won every election in the state since 2002.

It would be quite a comeback for the AfD, which looked a spent force a year ago. The migrant crisis that swept it into parliament in 2017 is a thing of the past, and Mrs Merkel, the hate figure the AfD pledged to drive out, is to retire.

But the party has found a new rallying cry.

“Lockdown must go,” Martin Reichardt, an AfD candidate, told the crowd when he could get a word in over the protesters – a twist on the old party slogan of “Merkel must go”.

“The coronavirus nonsense is really bringing us a lot of new voters,” Marcel Wald, a 33-year-old AfD activist, shouted enthusiastically over the protesters, who were now using a siren to drown out the speeches. “People have had enough. There’s no such thing as coronavirus, it’s just a bad case of flu. But Merkel is using it to force through a Green dictatorship.”

Coronavirus deniers and sceptics are flocking to the AfD. At the start of the rally, a speaker told those gathered that the police had insisted everyone wore a face mask and kept 1.5 metres apart. They ignored this, milling together without masks. Mr Wald told proudly how he had refused a vaccination despite being entitled to it weeks ago as he has severe asthma.

There was plenty of the AfD’s old anti-migrant rhetoric on show. “Merkel, you have made Germany a paradise for parasites and criminals,” read a placard brandished by one man.

“Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here,” chanted back the protesters. It was at this point that a large, tattooed AfD supporter dressed in black lost his temper and attempted to charge the barricade separating the crowds; he changed his mind when even larger police officers moved in.

Not everyone was coronasceptic. “The virus is real, there’s no doubt about that,” said Jan Schwarzenrot, a 45-year-old local businessman. “We needed lockdown but Merkel acted too late and she’s harmed businesses with unnecessary measures.”

He said the reason he would vote for the AfD was because “it’s the only real conservative party left” in Germany. “I used to vote CDU, but Merkel has destroyed the party. She’s dragged it too far to the Left.”

The problem for Armin Laschet, the CDU’s candidate to succeed Mrs Merkel as chancellor in September, is that he is facing too many battles on too many fronts.

Defeat by the AfD today would be the worst possible start to his campaign, but if he moves right to placate voters like Mr Schwarzenrot, he is in danger of losing votes on the Left.

The AfD may be the threat here in the former communist east, but in September the bigger challenge is from the centre-Left Greens. The Greens, currently second in the national polls, just two points behind the CDU on 22 per cent, are the new bogeyman for the AfD crowd. There is a lot of talk of a “Green dictatorship” and Annalena Baerbock, their chancellor candidate, was depicted with a hammer and sickle on the cover of an AFD magazine on sale at the rally.

Four years ago Mrs Merkel pulled off a delicate balancing act, making up for the votes she lost to the AfD in the east by taking votes from the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD) in the west, helped by Mr Laschet, the man who broke the SPD’s “Red Wall” in his home state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

But the rise of the Greens has complicated matters, because they are threatening the CDU’s own “Black Wall” in its traditional southern strongholds. That leaves Mr Laschet with nowhere to turn – whichever way he moves he risks losing votes.

As the rally drew to a close, a protester who managed to sneak over the barricades mounted a one-man stage invasion behind the AfD candidates as they stood for the German national anthem, before being led away by police.

AfD supporters headed off happily: despite the protesters, they had had their day in the sun. But even if they succeed in pulling off an upset today, it was hard to escape the impression their revolt is about to be overwhelmed by the bigger Green wave sweeping its way through German politics.

‘We needed lockdown but Merkel acted too late and she’s harmed businesses with unnecessary measures’