Europe fears a Nazis revival in Germany
Despite Angela Merkel’s victory, the alt right party, Alternative Für Deutschland, was the third most voted movement during general elections
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Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor since 2005, was reelected for the third time making this her fourth term. Merkel won with a clear advantage of 13% over her closest rival, Martin Schulz and from the Socialist Party.
The results show a clear support of the German people towards Merkel’s politics and her ideals, which include the strengthening of the European Union and the Eurozone, the refugees’ reception, and climate change solutions. Also, the second most voted party, the Socialist political congregation had similar ideas on important issues. With these outcomes, Germany sends a clear message to the world: keep us united while helping the refugees; religion, race, and sex do not matter.
However, the clear liberal victory in Deutschland was overshadowed by the rise of the AfD, Alternative for Germany. The alternative right movement progressed from 0 seats in the German parliament, the Bundestag, back in 2013, to 94 seats. The last time the extremist party arrived in government it was during the time of the Nazis with their anti-Semitic discourse.
But AfD not only arrived to the Bundestag for the first time, the party was the third most voted in the elections, with 12.6%. Despite the historical results, the movement will not become the leader of the opposition due to the decision of the SPD to move away from Merkel’s Government and become the opposition leaders themselves.
The Socialists party took this alternative after the 4-years coalition they had established with the conservative party. The elections were catastrophic for Schulz’s party since they obtained the lowest number of votes in the party’s recent history. They hope that in the “opposite shore” they’ll be able to rest AfD’s influence and to regain voters for the next elections.
However, everything is not bright for the AfD. Frauke Petry, one of their co-presidents, resigned her seat in parliament due to “internal differences between the party members”. Petry was considered one of the moderate section in the party, which means that the extremist wing of the AfD continues gaining power inside the collectivity.
Merkel accepted that the relative victory of the alt right means the disenchantment from many voters. This is why the German Chancellor vowed to win back the voters they lost during the last elections, -8.5% in comparison to the 2013 elections.
Right now, and despite the triumph of Merkel’s CDU (246 seats), the conservative movement needs to form a coalition with a minor party to gain the majority of the Bundestag (316 seats). Without the support of the SPD, Merkel sees in the Green Party and the Liberals possible allies in order to control parliament.
Latin American Post | Santiago Gómez Hernández
Copy edited by Susana Cicchetto
