A far-right party could hold the balance of power in Germany after sweeping to second place in a historic election.
Exit polls, issued after voting ended, suggest AfD (Alternative for Germany) – a celebration under intelligence service surveillance as a suspected extremist organisation – has won around 20% of the vote.
Called after the collapse of the Social Democrat-led coalition, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling party is anticipated to drop to 3rd place. It’s a ‘historic defeat’, the party’s general secretary concedes.
Meanwhile the Free Democrats, who pulled the plug on the federal government, may barely scrape the 5% required to win seats, in the event that they do in any respect.
With the right-wing CDU and CSU block emerging far ahead on 29%, any government is sort of certain to be led by their leader Friedrich Merz. He has already declared victory.
‘The world on the market isn’t waiting for us, neither is it waiting for lengthy coalition talks and negotiations’, he told supporters in Berlin.
‘We must now quickly regain our ability to act in order that we will do the suitable thing at home, in order that we’re once more present in Europe, in order that the world can see that Germany is being governed reliably again.’
Previously unthinkable on account of mainstream parties’ refusal to work with far-right parties, Merz may turn to the AfD to secure his role as Chancellor.
Election results and political divisions mean their could also be few alternatives.
Merz’s CDU has celebrated the demise of the so-called ‘traffic light coalition’ of the Social Democratic Party, Greens and Free Democrats.
His Bavarian partners, the CSU, have all but ruled out working with the Greens.
And Scholz, who conceded defeat on Sunday, stays firmly against working with the AfD.
Decrying that ‘an extreme right-wing party just like the AfD is getting such election results’, he said: ‘That mustn’t ever be something that we are going to accept. I won’t accept it and never will…. No cooperation with the intense right.’
However the AfD is feeling emboldened, and not only by these latest results – greater than double their previous result, and the very best for a far-right party since Adolf Hitler’s Nazis topped the poll in 1933.
‘Our hand stays outstretched to form a government’, party leader Alice Weidel said this evening.
In a campaign dominated by the problem of migration, the AfD issued flyers resembling ‘deportation tickets’.
Despite being a lesbian with a Sri Lankan partner, party leader Alice Weidel has advocated for the mass deportation of individuals with migrant backgrounds.
Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE: Teen suspect in stabbing Holocaust memorial ‘planned for weeks to kill Jews’
MORE: Mystery grips city after QR codes appear on 1,000 graves — nobody knows why
MORE: Eurostar rival plans direct trains from London to Germany and Switzerland
