German right wing's popularity reaches record highs

German right wing's popularity reaches record highs

In an unprecedented development, the Alternative for Germany party looks set to garner 22% of the vote for the first time, according to a fresh poll. A social scientist calls the party's exclusion a failure.

POLITICS JULY 13. 2023 11:50

Compared to the previous month, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has gained three percentage points in popularity, which means that for the first time 22% of eligible voters would cast their ballots for the right-wing formation, The poll results also put AfD ahead of the Social Democrats (SPD), the largest party in Germany’s federal governing coalition, four percentage points.

Support for the Social Democrats has continued its months-long decline and the party could only reach around 18 percent in an upcoming election, according to the Ipsos poll. The other governing party, the Greens, would fare even worse, with only 14 percent, while the Liberals (FDP), the third coalition party, could only garner 7 percent of the votes.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) coalition (CDU/CSU) still stands at 26 percent of the vote, according to the poll, and would get the most votes. However, they have lost two percentage points compared to the June survey.

AfD reacted to the new results on social media, writing that the CDU/CSU alliance is taking one low blow after another.

„Within the party there is a growing split between the New Greens and the Realists, even we are breathing down our necks. More and more people are realising that there is only one conservative party in the Bundestag.”

reads the post by AfD.

According to Robert Grimm, head of political and social research at Ipsos, it is rare that so many citizens are dissatisfied with the way their country is being run.

„The governing parties are attacking each other, which is why progress on big projects like the energy transition and digitalisation is slow. The country is in economic disarray and there is no immediate solution to the public’s concerns – inflation, rising rents, falling real wages, the Ukraine war and migration – on the horizon,”

– the analyst said, listing some of the core problems. According to the social scientist, AfD’s sudden leap is not only due to the fact that it offers a concrete response to the migration crisis, which is hitting Germany extremely hard, but also to the fact that the governing parties have tried to exclude the right-wing party from the political landscape and the legislature, using all sorts of pretexts. This effort has proved counterproductive, the expert says.

Meanwhile, the CDU/CSU offers neither an alternative program, nor a united front, according to the researcher. Examples of this are the smouldering chancellor issue, and the recent replacement of CDU’s general secretary. On the other hand, the ongoing process of self-dissolution of the leftist Die Linke party means that more votes will go to the AfD, especially in the east.

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afd, germany, green party, poll, spd