According to political scientist Antonios Souris, part of the AfD’s success can be attributed to its successful social media campaign.
The AfD’s leading European candidate, Maximilian Krah, was ousted from the newly elected European Parliament delegation.
Maximilian Krah, head of the European list, at the heart of several scandalswill be replaced by René Aust.
At the press conference in Berlin, AfD co-chairwoman Alice Weidel urged the German government to hold early elections.
“People want us to take on government responsibilities” she told reporters at a conference announcing Mr Aust’s new position.
Alice Weidel declared the Greens were finished. “People have understood what the presence of the Greens in government means. They ruin everything. They ruin the foundations. It’s not a liberal party, it’s a party of prohibitions“, she added.
Tino Chrupalla, co-leader of the party, said voters wanted the return of nuclear power to Germany and the possibility of continuing to drive cars with combustion engines.
There CDU emerged as the winning party on Sunday evening, but the AfD performed particularly well among young voters.
Politicians must “explain” to Germans what they want to do
Antonios Souris, a political scientist, says part of the AfD’s success can be attributed to its successful social media campaign, but he believes the three ruling parties should stop trying to compete with each other.
He also urged parties to “stop competing with each other in the media and in public, because this is something that Germans in general do not like. They don’t like this competition in the media or these fights in the media. What parties need to do is think of political solutions to solve the problems. It is increasingly important for them to explain their policies, especially for the chancellor himself, to explain his policies to the Germans and to explain his positions” he adds.
An analysis of Sunday’s vote
According to Mr. Souris, there were also positive signs, including the high participation rate of 65%, a record. Around 65 million people living in Germany were eligible to vote.
“Germany has experienced some very interesting developments. We could see that there was a strong democratic opposition party with the CDU and the CSU, which is always a good sign for democracy“, he declared, while adding that there had been “worrying developments” regarding “huge regional differences in right-wing voting“.
Despite this historic defeat for the Social Democrats, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has ruled out calling early elections. Alice Weidel said the AfD aimed to become the new government in the 2025 federal elections.
