The far-right party Alternative for Germany was preparing for an exceptional year.
Not long ago, the party, known as the AfD, was winning about 25 percent of the vote nationally. With European Parliament elections approaching and in three eastern states – its traditional stronghold – the party looked set to achieve its primary goal of moving from the margins to the mainstream.
Suddenly, the party’s future looks murkier. It is still relatively high: it is the second most popular party in the country. But recently, as its members have been caught up in spy and influence-peddling scandals, secret discussions over the deportation of immigrants and controversies over extreme statements, the AfD has faced an increasingly harsh backlash, threatening the gains it had made. achieved in the mainstream.
The constant drumbeat of errors and scandals has forced the party, already officially labeled a “suspected” extremist group by German authorities, to sideline even some senior members and has caused other far-right parties abroad to reject it.
“This week that we have left behind was not a good week,” said Alice Weidel, one of the party’s two leaders, at a campaign event on May 25.
The AfD is feeling the repercussions. Local elections held last weekend in the eastern state of Thuringia did not produce the resounding mandate that was expected, although they ended strongly.
Now, about a week before the European Parliament elections begin, the party’s prospects look a little shakier. However, it is still likely to win more seats than before in both the European Parliament and state elections, polls suggest.
“Some of the people who had already switched to the AfD have had second thoughts,” said Manfred Güllner, director of the Forsa Institute, a political polling agency. “But the core of the radical right is not going to disappear.”
Perhaps in a sign that the AfD camel can only hold a limited number of straws, the party last week censured its own, removing its two main candidates for the European Parliament elections from the election campaign, without removing them from the contest.
One of them, Maximilian Krah, gave a recent interview to the Financial Times and the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, in which he expressed his belief that not all members of the SS, the Nazi paramilitary force, were necessarily criminals. The other, Petr Bystron, is being investigated for receiving money from Russia.
Krah declined to comment for this article. Bystron did not respond to a request for comment.
Even in a party known for its rogue members who refuse to fall in line, the last few months have been many.
Before his comments, Krah had already spent weeks in the headlines after his assistant was arrested on suspicion of spying for China and his own offices were searched, a searing revaluation for a party that presents itself as anti-corruption and hyper-nationalist.
In May, the AfD leader in Thuringia state, Björn Höcke, was fined 13,000 euros, approximately $14,000, for using a banned Nazi slogan in a 2021 speech.
But perhaps the party’s most consequential revelation came in January, after it was revealed that AfD members had joined a meeting discussing the mass deportation of immigrants, including naturalized citizens.
The news sparked months of massive protests by millions of people against the AfD across the country. Current polls suggest that support for the party nationally has fallen, hovering between 14 and 17 percent, by some estimates, from a high of around 23 percent last December.
Hoping to regain momentum, the party faces something of a strategic tightrope, said Benjamin Höhne, a professor at Chemnitz University of Technology.
It must appease an extremist core while broadening its appeal among center-right voters if it is to extend its reach beyond its regional strongholds and achieve real power.
“This is a normalization strategy,” said Höhne. “Try to create an appeal for the middle of society, but not leave the right stigmatized in a corner.”
The path has narrowed further as former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has shifted to the right, potentially drawing voters away from the AfD.
In addition, a new party, the Sahra Wagenknecht movement, which combines populism and far-left politics, may also be a threat.
It is a situation that irritates some AfD members. “The CDU is now offering itself as a solution to the problems they have created,” said Stephan Brandner, a senior AfD federal lawmaker.
The underbelly of AfD support may be those voters who turned to the party for the first time (drawn by dissatisfaction with the government, or perhaps to cast a protest vote), who are now disheartened by the drumbeat of scandal.
“This part of the electorate is what the AfD leadership is fighting for now,” said Johannes Hillje, a German political scientist who studies the AfD. “They need to be able to mobilize much more than the far-right environment.”
In Bavaria, where the party had made gains, Andreas Jurca, an AfD member of the House of Representatives, says he is now witnessing a retraction. In recent months, he said, about 10 percent of new party candidates in his region have withdrawn their applications.
“Last year we managed to enter the middle class,” he said. “Now, their problem was not our positions; “It was that we became a kind of outcast.”
Last weekend’s elections in Thuringia offered a mixed picture about the AfD’s future. The party fared worse than expected in important seats, such as mayors and district leaders, winning 26 percent of the vote, second behind the CDU’s 27 percent.
But it won a majority of seats in several municipal councils, a change that could have knock-on effects in federal elections, said Matthias Quent, a professor at the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences who studies the far right.
“This is a new dimension and will change local politics,” Professor Quent said. Having AfD members direct daily life in Thuringia could increase the party’s legitimacy, with consequences for future elections. “The idea is normalization from below.”
Tatiana Firsova contributed reporting.