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Photo by Ronny HARTMANN/AFP via Getty ImagesOver the weekend, a thunderbolt reverberated through German politics as the right-wing, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party took home a thumping victory in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, receiving 43.8 per cent of the vote. Its next-closest rival, the centrist Christian Democratic Union (CDU), came in a distant second at 17.2 per cent. Notable were the vote differences from 2021: the AfD’s share went up 23 points, while the CDU lost nearly 20 points.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. 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Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorHowever, due to Germany’s system of proportional representation, the AfD does not have an absolute majority in the state legislature and will need the support of another party — likely the socially conservative but economically left-leaning Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, which received 5.3 per cent — if it is to govern.The National Post newsletter that doesn’t hold back, giving readers the unvarnished truth on media, politics and culture.By signing up, you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Right? will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againRegardless of whether AfD successfully forms a government, it has upended Germany politics and sent waves of panic flooding through the mainstream parties. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the CDU has explicitly ruled out any co-operation with the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt and will work to cobble together a shaky alliance of parties to keep it from power.The panic has spread well beyond Germany, with other European leaders voicing their concerns about the result. French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said the world must “resist” the “populist wave” sweeping the globe. Independent journalist Tilo Jung went further, asking at an AfD press conference if it saw any parallels between its success over the weekend and 1932, when the then-state of Anhalt elected the first Nazi state president.That the AfD says distasteful things and has used language uncomfortably close to the rhetoric of Nazi Germany is well documented. However, lost in the insults and panic that surround the AfD is any recognition of why it might be popular and why people are voting for it.It is both intellectually lazy and dishonest to simply believe that suddenly half of Saxony-Anhalt has found a rekindled love of the Nazis, rather than consider that perhaps voters are fed up with current governments that have not lived up to their promises. These same voters are looking to anyone who might offer something different. In this, the AfD has similarities with U.S. President Donald Trump, whose popularity some still refuse to try to understand.One of the lightning rods for the AfD’s rise has been immigration. In 2015, in response to the Syrian refugee crisis, then-chancellor Angela Merkel famously said, “Wir schaffen das” (“We can do it”). What Germany could apparently do was take in 1.2 million migrants from countries like Syria. Even by 2020, it was clear that there were huge problems associated with this move as many immigrants remained poorly integrated and unemployed.Incidents like the infamous Cologne sex assaults on New Year’s Eve 2016, in which 1,200 women were sexually assaulted by groups of men mostly identified as being of North African or Arab origin, turbocharged the AfD’s message. From 2015 to 2018, the AfD went from four to 18 per cent in the polls on an anti-immigration platform. And that AfD was far less sophisticated and refined than the current version that won in Saxony-Anhalt.Added to the immigration issues is a sluggish and struggling Germany economy. While the whole country has been hit, some regions have been hit harder than others. One of those is Saxony-Anhalt. It has the lowest per capita GDP in Germany, well below the European average.Considering those economic numbers, along with a large, poorly integrated immigrant population and a shaky financial outlook, it should not be a surprise to anyone that the voters in Saxony-Anhalt decided that the AfD and its lofty promises of tight borders, national interests and re-industrialization were worth a punt. Politicians who ask German voters to vote for status quo because of what happened in the 1930s, when those same voters are poor and see little prospect of their lot improving, are simply not living in reality.The AfD, Donald Trump, Reform U.K. and Marine Le Pen in France are all populist movements. Perhaps you personally consider them unsavoury and wish to see them gone. In that case, deriding and dismissing them as “far-right” or “extreme far-right” misses the larger point that voters may be reacting to something more basic: the sense that their lives are not getting better and current governments are ignoring them.Current governing parties need to take this as a lesson. While it may be difficult for a party like the CDU, which has ruled in Germany on and off for decades, to look itself sharply in the mirror and admit that it’s failing its citizens, that is its only path back to victory.Ten years ago, the AfD was a canary in the coalmine. It’s now a clear sign that the last decade has not served many Europeans well and if things don’t change quickly, more fire-breathing politicians could get elected throughout the continent.National Post Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. 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