Why the AfD is now Germany's most popular party

BERLIN – In the winter of 2018, Friedrich Merz was a failed political talent touring Germany on a mission to pull off an unlikely comeback.  

Nine years after withdrawing from active politics, Merz had thrown his hat in the ring to replace then-Chancellor Angela Merkel as leader of the centre-right Christian Democrats. 

Merz pitched himself as the man to slay the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) – who’d scored 12.6% in the previous year’s national election – and win back disaffected conservative voters who’d abandoned his party during Merkel’s centrist-leaning tenure. 

“You probably won’t be able to get rid of the AfD in the short term,” Merz told readers of Germany’s right-wing Bild tabloid during a Q&A session. “But you can halve it.” 

Six years later, Merz’s boast has never rung more hollow and continues to haunt him – even as his dreams of finally winning the chancellorship appear on the verge of coming true. 

In an historic shift, the AfD has risen to the top spot in a national opinion poll for the first time – just as Merz has tried to hammer out a coalition deal with the Social Democrats (SPD). 

It marks a watershed moment in Germany, given its fascist past, that makes the AfD the first far-right party since the defeat of the Nazis to sit atop German polls. 

“Political change will come!” the AfD’s chairwoman Alice Weidel wrote on X in reaction to the polls. 

The breaking point had been foreshadowed as early as last week, as a weekly survey by pollster INSA put the AfD tied for first place with Merz’s Christian Democrats with 24% each. 

While INSA’s methodology is controversial, a pair of other opinion polls also saw the AfD only narrowly trailing by two percentage points or less – within the margin of error. 

Then, the polls sent shockwaves through the Christian Democrats.  

“The poll results are bitter,” said Carsten Linnemann, the party’s chief of staff. “There must be no business as usual.” 

The AfD’s long game

For the radical AfD, the results mark the culmination of a long and deliberate march.

Founded in 2013 as a Eurosceptic outfit, the party quickly turned into a populist, anti-immigration outfit, whose polling was oscillating below 20%, with the changing tide of irregular migration. 

But its rise has been nearly uninterrupted since the outgoing Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unhappy coalition with the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) descended into infighting and deadlock, three years ago. 

Over Scholz’s tenure, the AfD’s standing in the polls roughly doubled, passing the SPD to claim second place in February’s vote. In parts of former East Germany, it came close to an absolute majority, casting a shadow on state elections in the region next year. 

The national top spot was all but looming large at this point.

Why now?

There is “disappointment among parts of the Christian Democrats’ electorate” over the preliminary outcomes of the coalition-building process, said Uwe Jun of the University of Trier, who specialises in parties and party systems. 

Prior to the election, Merz had promised a radical “change of policy”, as Germany was experiencing a security crisis, a spike in irregular migration and a lasting economic recession. 

He vowed to implement a much harsher border regime and cut social benefits and taxes for businesses. But early leaks from his preliminary coalition agreement with the SPD showed those plans to have been watered down considerably. 

Even more importantly, Merz blew up Germany’s strict rules against government debt to open the door for a bonanza of spending on defence and infrastructure – something that sits uneasily with the fiscally hawkish views of many conservative voters. 

It also clashes with the commitments from his own party’s election manifesto, Jun observed. 

The party’s economically conservative voters are generally disappointed that the SPD “seemed to have the upper hand in negotiations on fiscal policy”, he added.

Unstoppable

Merz’s allies have argued that the way to drive the AfD back down is to let the Christian Democrats deliver on their more right-wing campaign pledges. 

“I’m convinced that this can only be countered with good, practical policies,” said Thorsten Frei, the Christian Democrats’ chief whip.  

But there is a darker, structural explanation behind the AfD’s rise. 

“The overall mood among German voters has got a lot worse,” Jun said, pointing to “widespread fears about the future” amid several global crises and a lasting economic recession. 

A Deutschlandtrend poll published just before February’s election showed that 83 per cent of respondents worried about the situation in Germany – a similarly pessimistic mood had been last recorded over 20 years ago. 

Jun said: “When people are worried and disappointed, they tend to express more radical positions and protest attitudes – and this is what the AfD stands for.”

Macron’s paradox

That means that better policies alone will not do the trick, even if they improve people’s lives, Jun added. 

“People are also longing for stability and authenticity. This is what Merz will have to embody to be successful.” 

That is a familiar problem for centrists like French President Emmanuel Macron, who has failed to contain the far-right National Rally (RN) despite pushing through policies that have been credited with intermittently improving France’s economy. 

Macron’s aloof, prickly demeanour rubbed some voters the wrong way, and he’s found himself in clashes with several parts of the French electorate. 

Personal appeal is also where Merz has been found wanting, according to the pollsters. Nearly two-thirds – 60% – say Merz is not suitable to be chancellor, according to a Forsa poll published this week. 

Merz will be sure to feel the scorn of his opponents if he fails to reverse the AfD’s polling. That the party’s latest surge coincided with the advent of his chancellorship has not been lost on the members of the outgoing government, that Merz had frequently blamed for the AfD’s rise. 

Green Party’s co-chair, Franziska Brantner, said: “Mr Merz said he would halve the AfD. Now he has just boomed it upwards.” 

(bts, om)