German Elections & Politics

[Zanas]

It was that.

The way it's going, we should soon se them overtaken by the Left, or, god forbid, by the FDP...

Nothing more than a psychological threshold, of course, but still not good news for the future of the AfD's chances.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Breaking: Frauke Petry declines to become her party's lead candidate for the upcoming election. This includes both a solo candidacy and a candidacy as part of a team.

[palandio]

lol at all the shipping for AfD and Greens to go down and down and down and finish below 5%. I'm quite sure that both will be safely over 5% in the federal election (and I'm not sympathizing with either of them).

The refugee crisis is a bit out of the news and people are aware that the AfD aren't competent in any way, so they are losing a bit of the swing vote. But at the same time it's difficult to see which issue could draw the AfD core vote away. And if they were to be drawn away, where would they go (Merkel? SPD?). Also the human-trafficking season has just begun on the Mediterranean route and this will eventually affect Germany, not only Italy. And most recent immigrants are still in Germany, they are visible and people see what they want to see in them.

The Greens on the other hand have their share of over 5% who identify as Greens, have been voting Green consistently in many elections, federal, regional, communal. (This part of the electorate is below 5% in most of the East though, and in some low-income areas of the West [North-Western Lower Saxony, Saar, Mosel, Western Palatinate, Eastern Bavaria, Emscher bassin, etc.].) These voters would leave the Greens only if they dropped a nuclear bomb, and even then I'm not sure.

[ApatheticAustrian]

i can't wait to see the storch - höcke ticket.

[Klartext89]

And that's it : AfD fourth behind die Linke. But I see they had already fallen from third in an Allensbach poll from late March, polling even fifth.

Well, it's only Forsa and we all know (but some might not want to aknowledge) that Gülle-Güllner is not a pollster, he's a political heck ;-)


Von Storch would be great, but it will be Alice Weidel. As a sheep wanting to kill Germany, I would be scared now because she can't be smeared in the normal left-wing media way ;-)

At the end of course it has to be said that it's veeeeeeery different that the German Opposition gets less TV time than the Turkish one ^^

[Tender Branson]

And that's it : AfD fourth behind die Linke. But I see they had already fallen from third in an Allensbach poll from late March, polling even fifth.

Well, it's only Forsa and we all know (but some might not want to aknowledge) that Gülle-Güllner is not a pollster, he's a political heck ;-)

Von Storch would be great, but it will be Alice Weidel. As a sheep wanting to kill Germany, I would be scared now because she can't be smeared in the normal left-wing media way ;-)

At the end of course it has to be said that it's veeeeeeery different that the German Opposition gets less TV time than the Turkish one ^^

The "German Opposition" is not only the AfD though ...

[Middle-aged Europe]

New Schleswig-Holstein state election poll (Infratest)

SPD 33% (+-0)
CDU 31% (+1)
Greens 12% (+-0)
FDP 9% (+-0)
AfD 5% (-2)
Left 4% (+-0)
SSW 3% (+-0)

Majority for SPD-Greens-SSW if the AfD makes it past 5%, majority for SPD-Greens if the AfD fails to enter the state parliament.

[Tender Branson]

And that's it : AfD fourth behind die Linke. But I see they had already fallen from third in an Allensbach poll from late March, polling even fifth.

Well, it's only Forsa and we all know (but some might not want to aknowledge) that Gülle-Güllner is not a pollster, he's a political heck ;-)


Von Storch would be great, but it will be Alice Weidel. As a sheep wanting to kill Germany, I would be scared now because she can't be smeared in the normal left-wing media way ;-)

At the end of course it has to be said that it's veeeeeeery different that the German Opposition gets less TV time than the Turkish one ^^

It would certainly be interesting somehow to see a highly successful lesbian woman like Alice Weidel leading the AfD into the federal election, but I don't see how she becomes the frontrunner. She's hardly known to members outside BW and she didn't even make it as BW party leader recently.

[ApatheticAustrian]

weidel HATES höcke, would be splitting the anti-petry-coalition again.

[palandio]

The Weidel candidacy seems to be a strategical move of Hampel, Gauland et al. They want to isolate Petry and Pretzell and to do this they need to outflank them on all sides. On the other hand they still need Höcke's troops as an infantry for internal purposes and therefore they must prevent Höcke's expulsion. But for this to work they need to pacify the anti-Höcke part of the party, which they want to achieve by promoting one of the key anti-Höcke figures. Sounds more like a plot from House of Cards and I'm not sure how it will turn out, but hey, it's the AfD.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

New Federal poll from Infratest:

CDU/CSU - 35% (+1)
SPD - 30% (-1)
AfD - 10% (-1)
Left - 8% (+1)
Greens - 7% (-1)
FDP - 6% (+/-)
Others - 4% (+1)

[Middle-aged Europe]

Speaking of the AfD... AfD Bundestag candidate Jens Maier is in trouble after saying in a speech that Anders Behring Breivik was merely forced to act "out of desperation".

Maier also happens to be a judge, so I guess Breivik merely had the bad luck of getting a judge who didn't sympathize with his motives.

[Beezer]

Remember February, when Schulz was set to be the next chancellor?

[Representative simossad]

Remember February, when Schulz was set to be the next chancellor?

The campaigns haven't really started yet.

[Beezer]

I don't know, Schulz doesn't really strike me as the kind of person that gets more popular the more you know about him. My prediction: There will be at least a 8.5 point gap between the CDU/CSU and SPD when everything is set and done.

[DL]

Remember February, when Schulz was set to be the next chancellor?

I remember February when there was a possibility that Schultz would be the next chancellor. It was a possibility then (never more than a tossup) and it will still be a possibility when the formal campaign begins

[ApatheticAustrian]

it is btw quite possible, that schulz hasn't lost even one voter - the close results just persuaded cdu-friendly afd-moderates, fdp voters and non-voters to "come home".

[Beezer]

it is btw quite possible, that schulz hasn't lost even one voter - the close results just persuaded cdu-friendly afd-moderates, fdp voters and non-voters to "come home".

I suppose it's also possible that Schulz didn't really persuade too many voters but that he just got his convention bounce back in February. I think I wrote it back then as well: For the past decade the SPD has been a 25 rather than a 35% party. Getting north of 30% will require quite a bit of persuasion indeed.

[Tender Branson]

AfD convention in Cologne has started.

Some 50.000 left-leftist extremists and protesters are expected outside the convention hall and some have already intimidated and attacked convention guests.

Will be interesting what comes out of this ... probably a Gauland/Weidel ticket or something.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Some 50.000 left-leftist extremists and protesters are expected outside the convention hall and some have already intimidated and attacked convention guests.

Eeh, while there were undoubtedly a couple of extremists among those 50,000 people (there always are) and some of these extremists have committed acts of violence, the peaceful majority of protesters have followed the call of the "Köln stellt sich quer" alliance who has organized the main anti-AfD demonstration today.

Among the members of "Köln stellt sich quer" are the CDU, the FDP, the SPD, the Greens, the Left Party, the Pirate Party, all major labor unions, both Christian churches, Jewish organizations, Amnesty International, and so on... all in all more than 80 organizations.

[Middle-aged Europe]

On the AfD convention itself, it has become very clear how isolated Frauke Petry is within her own party after suffering a a couple of defeats und snubs today. Question is how long she will be able to survive as chairwoman, since she seemed only like a chairwoman in name only today.

[Representative simossad]

Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland will lead the AfD as the top two into the general election in september. While Frauke Petry remains chairwoman of the AfD and the leading candidate of the AfD Saxony, Weidel and Gauland will be the national faces of the the party.

Weidel (38) is said to be a representative of the libertarian faction of the party. She is known for fundamental critic against the Euro and the European Union, and she supported the expulsion of Björn Höcke. Gauland (76) is an extreme nationalist and a supporter of Höcke. He was involved in a scandal when he said in 2016 that no one would like to live next to Jerome Boateng (famous black German soccer player). He also stated that Germany needs a strong border policy and that Germany needs to "endure these horrible pictures" and that it "must not get blackmailed by the eyes of refugee children". Gaulands daughter is a protestand priest who called the remarks of her father "disgusting". She herself gives shelter to a man from Eritrea in her parsonage. It's clear that Gauland is not a huge sympathy factor.

[Tender Branson]

Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland will lead the AfD as the top two into the general election in september. While Frauke Petry remains chairwoman of the AfD and the leading candidate of the AfD Saxony, Weidel and Gauland will be the national faces of the the party.

Weidel (38) is said to be a representative of the libertarian faction of the party. She is known for fundamental critic against the Euro and the European Union, and she supported the expulsion of Björn Höcke. Gauland (76) is an extreme nationalist and a supporter of Höcke. He was involved in a scandal when he said in 2016 that no one would like to live next to Jerome Boateng (famous black German soccer player). He also stated that Germany needs a strong border policy and that Germany needs to "endure these horrible pictures" and that it "must not get blackmailed by the eyes of refugee children". Gaulands daughter is a protestand priest who called the remarks of her father "disgusting". She herself gives shelter to a man from Eritrea in her parsonage. It's clear that Gauland is not a huge sympathy factor.

Yeah, I expected this ticket.

And it makes sense for the AfD. You've got the common-sense moderate part of the ticket with Weidel and the extreme right part with Gauland.

Both wings within the party can be happy now. If they still f**k up the election, you cannot help this party anymore.

[ApatheticAustrian]

chief of the pro-höcke wing and the major anti-höcke voice....welö played.

[Klartext89]

Only a few sentences to the hilarious protest against AfD party meeting in Cologne.

The media expected 50.000, now they estimate 10.000, what in reality means 5.000 - in a metropolitan area with appr. 10 million people living within an hour of travel time, calling this embarrassingly low would be a huge understatement of this big failure.

Nevertheless, simply frightening that the left-wing terrorist group AntiFa, which receives big money from the German government, can terrorize a whole city and it takes 4.000 brave policemen to make a party meeting of the biggest (and only) opposition party possible.

The videos of attacked delegates and fights inside the city between police and these terrorists which I have seen are a big shame and seeing that this is meanahile openly supported by the Establishment politicians says all.

All in all, big success for AfD. They dominated the news, showed unity and got a very good team which will appeal to a bug chunk of voting groups.