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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.politico.eu/article/merk...land-opposition-far-right-elections-refugees/
Opinion
Merkel’s right-wing temptation
You could be forgiven for thinking the right-wing AfD is Merkel’s nightmare — it’s quite the opposite.
By Nikolaus Blome | 1/5/16, 5:30 AM CET
Comments 5
BERLIN — Since World War II it was taken for granted that Germany’s conservative Christian Democrats and their Bavarian partners, the Christian Social Union, would not allow a democratic party to permanently exist further to their right. For decades, they lived up to that principle. But in early 2013, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) was founded as a home for conservative critics of Angela Merkel’s policies for saving the euro. The AfD narrowly failed to enter the Bundestag that same year by only 0.3 percentage points, then the party suffered a split one year later — but it came back.
As of today the AfD is a nationalistic, anti-establishment party which capitalizes on xenophobia and the ongoing refugee crisis. Opinion polls put its support at an amazing 10 percent, and it is on its way to entering the regional assemblies of the three Bundesländer scheduled to hold elections in March 2016.
That should be enough to send shivers down Merkel’s spine. But it will not. Instead, in the short term it promises to be a tactical win for the chancellor and her party. And in the long run, the AfD will either vanish as a political threat by splitting one more time, or it will turn into a potential partner to secure what would be a structural majority right of center — something entirely new to Germany’s political system.
* * *
Why so? First, it is about electoral arithmetic in the two most important Länder (Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate) that vote in March. As current polls suggest, the sitting heads of both regional governments will lose their tiny majorities if the AfD enters the state parliaments. They will presumably be replaced by coalition governments which will be led by CDU politicians. Thus, thanks to the AfD, Merkel’s CDU will win two important elections and can use that victory to publicly argue that Germans are backing the chancellor’s policy on refugees. Although that isn’t true, in political terms it will buy the chancellor time that she badly needs.
Second, whichever way the AfD goes in the long run, it suits Merkel. She can simply stand by and watch: If the party splits up again, leaving behind the rest of its decent middle-class followers, it will vanish like so many other right-wing extremist parties have done before. Its white-collar voters may even revert to the liberal Free Democrats (FDP). That again would help Merkel.
If, on the other hand, the middle-class faction of the AfD prevails, it will still remain an unpleasant populist movement: Islamophobic, utterly anti-European and turning its back on globalization and change. Yet it won’t be extremist and may develop into a party like Britain’s Tories or the French conservatives. So far, the AfD’s rise in the polls has done relatively little harm to the CDU’s ratings, potentially increasing the likelihood of a structural majority to the right in a country which is so far said to only have such a structural majority on the left.
Four out of the last five nationwide elections saw leftist parties — the Social Democrats (SPD), Socialists and Greens — win a majority of seats in the Bundestag. But only twice did their candidate then become chancellor, either because the three parties could not agree on a coalition or had ruled it out well ahead of election day. In the current Bundestag, on any given day, the three leftist parties could muster a majority to oust Merkel and vote in the head of the SPD, Sigmar Gabriel, as chancellor. To eliminate that potential threat when the new Bundestag is elected in late 2017 would be a strategic win for the German conservatives.
To sum up: like the vast majority of Germans, Angela Merkel strongly dislikes the AfD for its stance on refugees, the euro and its xenophobic rhetoric. Yet for various reasons the AfD holds political promise for the chancellor. And temptation, too.
Nikolaus Blome is deputy editor-in-chief of Europe’s biggest daily, BILD.
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.politico.eu/article/merk...land-opposition-far-right-elections-refugees/
Opinion
Merkel’s right-wing temptation
You could be forgiven for thinking the right-wing AfD is Merkel’s nightmare — it’s quite the opposite.
By Nikolaus Blome | 1/5/16, 5:30 AM CET
Comments 5
BERLIN — Since World War II it was taken for granted that Germany’s conservative Christian Democrats and their Bavarian partners, the Christian Social Union, would not allow a democratic party to permanently exist further to their right. For decades, they lived up to that principle. But in early 2013, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) was founded as a home for conservative critics of Angela Merkel’s policies for saving the euro. The AfD narrowly failed to enter the Bundestag that same year by only 0.3 percentage points, then the party suffered a split one year later — but it came back.
As of today the AfD is a nationalistic, anti-establishment party which capitalizes on xenophobia and the ongoing refugee crisis. Opinion polls put its support at an amazing 10 percent, and it is on its way to entering the regional assemblies of the three Bundesländer scheduled to hold elections in March 2016.
That should be enough to send shivers down Merkel’s spine. But it will not. Instead, in the short term it promises to be a tactical win for the chancellor and her party. And in the long run, the AfD will either vanish as a political threat by splitting one more time, or it will turn into a potential partner to secure what would be a structural majority right of center — something entirely new to Germany’s political system.
* * *
Why so? First, it is about electoral arithmetic in the two most important Länder (Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate) that vote in March. As current polls suggest, the sitting heads of both regional governments will lose their tiny majorities if the AfD enters the state parliaments. They will presumably be replaced by coalition governments which will be led by CDU politicians. Thus, thanks to the AfD, Merkel’s CDU will win two important elections and can use that victory to publicly argue that Germans are backing the chancellor’s policy on refugees. Although that isn’t true, in political terms it will buy the chancellor time that she badly needs.
Second, whichever way the AfD goes in the long run, it suits Merkel. She can simply stand by and watch: If the party splits up again, leaving behind the rest of its decent middle-class followers, it will vanish like so many other right-wing extremist parties have done before. Its white-collar voters may even revert to the liberal Free Democrats (FDP). That again would help Merkel.
If, on the other hand, the middle-class faction of the AfD prevails, it will still remain an unpleasant populist movement: Islamophobic, utterly anti-European and turning its back on globalization and change. Yet it won’t be extremist and may develop into a party like Britain’s Tories or the French conservatives. So far, the AfD’s rise in the polls has done relatively little harm to the CDU’s ratings, potentially increasing the likelihood of a structural majority to the right in a country which is so far said to only have such a structural majority on the left.
Four out of the last five nationwide elections saw leftist parties — the Social Democrats (SPD), Socialists and Greens — win a majority of seats in the Bundestag. But only twice did their candidate then become chancellor, either because the three parties could not agree on a coalition or had ruled it out well ahead of election day. In the current Bundestag, on any given day, the three leftist parties could muster a majority to oust Merkel and vote in the head of the SPD, Sigmar Gabriel, as chancellor. To eliminate that potential threat when the new Bundestag is elected in late 2017 would be a strategic win for the German conservatives.
To sum up: like the vast majority of Germans, Angela Merkel strongly dislikes the AfD for its stance on refugees, the euro and its xenophobic rhetoric. Yet for various reasons the AfD holds political promise for the chancellor. And temptation, too.
Nikolaus Blome is deputy editor-in-chief of Europe’s biggest daily, BILD.