Posted on 09/22/2017 8:02:45 AM PDT by Rockitz
WISMAR, Germany—Candidate Georg Pazderski of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany spent nearly half his speech in this harbor town earlier this week highlighting the danger of Islamist terrorism. Chancellor Angela Merkel dispatched the topic in roughly 80 seconds in an address here the next day.
As this country’s election campaign reaches its crescendo ahead of Sunday’s vote, its participants appear to be fighting different battles. Ms. Merkel, looking assured of victory, is engaging her opponents in mainstream parties on pensions, infrastructure, education, and economic policy. The Alternative for Germany is creeping up in the polls while positioning itself as the only party sounding the alarm about what it says is the existential threat posed by Muslim immigration.
The AfD, as the party is known, is now polling above 10%, less than its peak early this year and well below what other far-right parties elsewhere in Europe have garnered in recent elections. But for Germany, if the polls hold, its impending entry into parliament would mark a turning point in a country where right-wing populism has long been banished from mainstream discussion. And it would show that despite Germany’s thriving economy, an undercurrent of popular distrust and discontent threatens to unsettle a largely stable political system.
The unease is especially apparent here in the former East Germany, where unemployment is higher and the mainstream political parties less deeply anchored than in the more prosperous former West. But AfD is drawing rising support from across the country, polls show.
Interviews with AfD supporters conducted in recent weeks, from the German southwest to here on the Baltic seacoast, yielded one common complaint: Mainstream politicians, the voters said, don’t take their concerns about immigration seriously enough.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
“Prayerfully Merkel experiences a crushing defeat as Germans get fed up with the destruction of their country by Merkel policies. “
In Germany, they vote for the party, not the candidate. The head of the party, Merkel for the CDU, ascends to the highest office. She must then form a 51% coalition with the other parties. Each party will have policy and law demands and a seat for a party member to enforce those demands. This election is particularly problematic as the likely coalition partners will never see eye to eye on the policy issues critical to the others. The AFD is the only anti-immigrant party and will likely get only 11-12% of the vote, which is enough to get a few seats in the lower house of government, but not at the policy level. Estimates are now that Merkel will be unable to forge a lasting coalition and there may be another election if she can’t. But nothing, at this point, says that Merkel will be out of office as her party, the CDU, is polling around 30%.
Here is yesterday’s NY Times article on inequality and poverty in Germany:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/world/europe/germany-election-inequality.html
“Estimates are now that Merkel will be unable to forge a lasting coalition and there may be another election if she can’t.”
That’s a start, but probably too late for Germany.
Divine intervention is needed.
2 weeks later elections (Oct 15) in neighboring Austria
Right wing Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) is polling about 25 %
The main party, People Party of Austria (OVP) is ahead with about 33 %, Socialists about same as FPO
The OVP has adapted platform opposing immigration and refugees - main plank of FPO, which claims is political
plagiarism
Let’s hope. But I doubt the Germans will give up their Nanny State for security.
Having failed to expel the Nazis, Alternate for Germany will be sabotaged by one or more of the mentally-ill goose steppers opening his mouth.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.