Daily Times

Germany has finally abandoned all efforts to be on the left of the centre of the political spectrum. Since 2005, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany has been ruled by centre-right parties, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party Christian Social Union (CSU). This year, in the general elections held on September 24, a far-right political party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), has secured requisite votes (more than 5 per cent) to qualify for entering German Parliament, Bundestag.

In the current election, CDU-CSU shed 9 per cent of its vote and garnered 33 per cent of the vote, compared to 42 per cent of the vote in the 2013 elections. Its competitor Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which is a centre-left party and led by Martin Schulz who took over the SPD in March this year, shed 6 per cent of its vote and secured just 20 per cent of the vote, compared to 26 per cent of the vote in the 2013 elections. In this way, this time both CDU-CSU and SPD have underperformed since 1949. However, two parties have grown in this election.

First, the AfD, which has secured about 12 per cent of the vote, compared to about 4 per cent of the vote in the 2013 elections. Second, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), which has secured about 10 per cent of the vote, compared to about 4 per cent in the 2013 elections. Out of these two entrants, the more focus is on the AfD which will be making first ever representation in Bundestag. While the FDP is the party of centre-right, the AfD is a far-right party representing right-wing populism. The other two political parties, which are entering Bundestag, are the Left and the Greens, each securing about 9 per cent of the vote.

This time the CDU-CSU will make a coalition with the FDP and the Greens to embody black-yellow-green Jamaica coalition, whereas the SPD will sit on the opposition benches. The AfD will also sit in the opposition as the third largest party. In the 2013 elections, the CDU-CSU made a coalition with its archrival SPD. Of all these six parties, the position of the AfD is unique. It is not only a new entrant but also the first far-right party to have won elections to enter Bundestag since the end of the Second World War. This point brings one to the question that what it all means for Germany.

On September 24th, after the announcement of electoral results, while being interviewed by Hala Gorani of CNN, Georg Pazderski, a local leader of AfD in Berlin, stated that Islam did not belong in Germany because it did not treat men and women equal and that this point was against the German norms and values. However, this justification defied the developments leading to AfD’s electoral success.

This time the general focus of political parties’ electoral campaigns was immigration, relations with the European Union (EU), taxes, social security, jobs and environment. However, at the heart of all these topics was the ideology of nativity (or nativism) encompassing both immigration and relations with the EU. The rise of the AfD is not because of offering any preferable economic agenda or the religion of Islam but on account of animosity against non-Germans of all types called auslanders.

This time the general focus of political parties’ electoral campaigns was: immigration, EU relations, taxes, social security, jobs and the environment. However, at the heart of all these remained the ideology of nativity (or nativism) encompassing both immigration and relations with Europe

After the era of the centre-left SPD under the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder (from 1998 to 2005) was over, Germany started drifting towards right-wing conservatism, and in 2017 the German system has finally recognised the legitimacy of far-right wing conservatism. One of the major repercussions is that attacks against foreigners will increase quantitatively and another is that more such parties will emerge to grab a chance of an electoral win.

The rise of the AfD is not a sudden phenomenon, but a spillover effect of Angela Merkel’s strategy of doing politics. After Schroder’s SPD won general elections in 1998, he introduced economic reforms to open society to international competition. In 2000, Schroder introduced a high skilled immigration policy and that initiated the undoing of his government. When foreigner high skilled workers were landing in Germany, Merkel got elected as the head of CDU which had ruled over Germany from 1982 to 1998 under the slogan, ‘Deutschland ist kein Einwanderungsland’ (Germany is not a land of immigration). Merkel raised the same slogan against Schroder and rallied right wing Germans around her.

Merkel disparaged the immigration policy not on the basis of any qualitative deficiency in high skilled immigrants but on the basis of an anticipated threat to ‘Deutsche Wettbewerbsfähigkeit’ (German competitiveness). Instead of asking Germans to compete foreign high skilled workers, she fanned hatred against them by mounting the fear that foreigners would outclass Germans in Germany. Seeing her strategy working, she stooped further low and promoted other right-wing slogans such as German jobs for Germans, foreigners are bread snatchers, say ‘no’ to immigration, children instead of Indians, and the worst of all was the slogan that foreigners are criminals.

Consequently, high skilled immigrants and other foreigners were harassed, insulted, and intimidated both at their workplaces and on the streets, just to force them leave the country. By 2004, almost all fled Germany. In 2005, the right-wing surge steered by Merkel not only routed Schroder’s SPD but also emboldened other right wing parties to think along similar lines. Resultantly, in April 2013, from within the ranks of the CDU, Bernd Lucke sacrificed his 33-year long allegiance to the party with thousands of defectors and founded a Eurosceptic, anti-immigration, ultra-right-wing party, the AfD.

Just like Merkel who took four years (from 2000 to 2005) to make her party CDU win the general election and enter Bundestag, Lucke’s party (the AfD) has also taken four years (from 2013 to 2017) to enter Bundestag. With that, the trend of expressing more and more right wing conservatism and wooing German voters continues unabated. Another far-right party, National Democratic Party (NPD), may revive itself to court German voters and enter Bundestag next time.

The writer can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com

Published in Daily Times, November 28^th 2017.