BERLIN – The German alternative is a far-right party surveillanced by the Intelligence Reports suspected of extremism, which brought great benefits in the German general election on Sunday.
According to an exit poll issued at 6:21pm locally (12:21pm ET), AFD, which includes supporters such as White House Elon Musk, ranks second with 19.8% of the vote. CDU led the poll with 28.7%. This means that leader Friedrich Merz will lead negotiations with other political parties to form the next government.
The AFD is unlikely to be part of the government as the German coalition system requires cooperation between parties and others have refused to cooperate with far-right groups. However, the party’s rise to the political mainstream is evident in the country’s large bands that are deeply aware of the Nazi past.
It is part of a wider surge on the far right of Europe, and its supporters have already made connections with Trump’s White House. The rise in the AFD came among some of them by people from immigrant backgrounds in the middle of the attacks across Germany. Also, on the agenda, it was Germany’s stagnant economy and the war in Ukraine.
AFD leader Alice Weidel called it a “glowing” success in a televised speech after the exit vote. This is the best result for her 12-year-old party, doubles the vote share since her last election in 2021.
German current leader, Prime Minister Olaf Scholz, appears to have left his position as the Social Democrats, who have only achieved 16% in exit polls. Scholz called it a “bitter result,” but emphasized the far right being “never accept it.”
Scholz is shaking up the Trump White House intervention on behalf of the AFD, and is known as Musk’s vocal support for the party “aversion.” Over the past few months, Musk has become a passionate supporter of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim parties, but Vice President JD Vance has also pledged his support.
President Donald Trump refrained from naming the party, but he welcomed the election as a “great day for Germany” on his true social platform.
“It appears that the German Conservative Party has won a very large and highly anticipated election,” he wrote. “Like the US, Germans are getting bored of the unconventional agenda, particularly about energy and immigration.
Socialist Dai Linke party appears to have done better than expected at 8.5%, while the Professional Business Freedom Party and the Left Populist Sarah Wagen Knecht Alliance are the German parliament Bundes They will fight to achieve the 5% needed to enter the tag.
Due to the German electoral system, it is extremely difficult for one party to govern on its own. The parties must form a cross-party coalition, with negotiations taking weeks or months.
Merz’s CDU will lead the talks with SPD and Greens as potential partners. Everything vowed to avoid AFD.
The second place position in the AFD sparked alarms across Germany. Outside the party’s election venue in the outskirts of North Berlin, around 200 protesters gathered, and the deafening “catastrophe sirens” of the 1960s were primarily intended to warn of nuclear attacks. Masu. This time, the operator told me that it was a democratic emergency.
“This is a warning about the consequences of German fascism,” said Stephen Peltzer, 38, who ran a group of political beauty activists and organized the demonstrations.
Peltzer said the rib-vibrated siren and the ground beneath it was mounted behind a modified former prison truck and could hear nearly 10 miles. Riot police eventually attacked the vehicle and silenced the device.
The protesters held signs calling the AFD “Nazis” and had more profanity monikers. Dozens of police officers have maintained 100 yards from the AFD event that Weidel and others celebrated.
Back in the heart of Berlin’s historic Ständige Vertretung Pub, the patrons who flipped fried meatballs and German sausages, election watchers expressed mixed emotions.
Sabine Teichmann, 66, a retired nurse, said she doesn’t like the far right, but she believes it’s wrong to exclude them from democratic consultations. “I don’t like AFD – they like Putin, and I hate President Putin – but it’s important to talk to them,” she said.
Cologne comedian Jens Singer (57) lamented the decline in performance of centre-left SPD.
“It’s like an American Democrat,” he said. “They lost sight of the working class. “We need two powerful parties on the left and right,” he said, “They stopped voting because they were separated from my people.
