Far-right party’s support surges before German regional elections

Alternative for Germany’s popularity could threaten Angela Merkel’s coalition government

Support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has surged before regional elections next month, recent opinion polls suggest.

The party’s popularity in two former communist eastern states threatens German chancellor Angela Merkel‘s coalition government.

Ms Merkel’s conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) jointly run the state of Saxony, while in neighbouring Brandenburg the SPD governs alongside the radical Left Party.

Opinion polls suggest the party could come first in both states in the 1 September elections, humiliating Ms Merkel’s party and the SPD.

The AfD’s anti-migrant message has resonated in the two relatively poor former communist states, which share a large mining region threatened by government plans to phase out coal.

One recent poll for Brandenburg, conducted by Forsa for the regional newspaper Markische Allgemeine, put the AfD in front with 21 per cent of the vote, followed by Ms Merkel’s party on 18 per cent and the SPD on 17 per cent.

Losing Brandenburg, which SPD has run since German reunification in 1990, would intensify calls within the party for it to leave Ms Merkel’s coalition and rebuild in opposition.

Similarly, a defeat for Ms Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Saxony, which it has run for three decades, would increase pressure on Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, her preferred successor as chancellor.

Ms Merkel’s coalition, which the SPD joined only reluctantly after the 2017 national election, has been weakened by disputes over its asylum policy, the fate of a former intelligence chief accused of far-right sympathies, and painful losses in regional votes.

Ominously for Ms Merkel, her CDU lost votes to the AfD in the European elections in May in Saxony and nationwide.

In 2017, the AfD made it into parliament on a wave of popular anger over Ms Merkel’s decision to take around one million mainly Muslim refugees fleeing wars and poverty in the Middle East and beyond.

The party claims the refugees pose a threat to German culture and said it wanted to turn away those who enter the country without identification documents, restrict migrant access to welfare, ban the construction of mosques with minarets and speed up the deportation of rejected asylum seekers.

It also alleges refugees are behind a spike in violent crime – a view contested by other parties.

Additional reporting by Reuters