How Germany’s far-right AfD could challenge Angela Merkel

Nigel Farage has given his backing to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the run-up to the German federal election, saying it would be a “historic achievement” if the party entered the Bundestag.

“For the first time in modern history, there will be a voice of opposition in German parliament,” the South East England MEP told an audience of AfD supporters in Berlin.

AS Germany gears up for the vote, on 24 September, Farage urged Germans to “say to Brussels: look, the reason the Brits left is because you’re behaving so badly, you’re taking away so much of people’s freedom, liberty and democracy”.

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The former UKIP leader received a standing ovation, Sky News reports. But even with Farage’s support and the publicity generated by his speech, how much of a threat is the AfD to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government?

Who are the AfD?

The AfD is set to become the country’s third-biggest party, according to polls, which show Merkel on track for a fourth term.

The AfD, which was founded as an anti-Euro party but has since adopted a more strongly nationalist agenda, is currently polling between 8% and 11%, with around two weeks until Germany goes to the polls. It is behind the Social Democrats (SPD), on 25%, and Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), on 37% - and ahead of far-left Die Linke.

If the AfD were to become the third-largest party in the Bundestag, “it would drastically change the German political landscape” and also signal a “massive cultural and ideological shift”, says The Independent.

Combining an unapologetically nationalist, anti-EU, populist agenda with a technology-driven grass-roots operation, the party has emerged as a political force in a matter of years. This has led to comparisons with the Continent’s other disruptive political movements such as Italy’s Five Star Movement and Spain’s Podemos.

The AfD “took a further lurch to the right last year when its leader in the state of Thuringia, Bjoern Hoecke, called in a speech in a Dresden beer hall for a ‘180-degree turn’ in Germany’s culture of commemorating and atoning for its crimes in the Second World War”, says The Guardian.

Does the AfD pose a threat to Angela Merkel?

It had been thought that the success of AfD would divide Merkel’s conservative base, but despite a brief surge from her socialist rival Martin Schulz, the chancellor’s approval ratings have so far been steady.

Merkel’s electoral support has been “buttressed” by the continued strength of the German economy, says the London Evening Standard.

Germany accounts for nearly a quarter of the eurozone’s overall economic activity, and the country’s GDP is growing at 2.1%, its fastest pace for three years.

Yet Merkel is wary of complacency setting in among her supporters, and plans more than 50 major rallies in towns and cities across Germany in the run-up to the election.

The chancellor has promised tax cuts of €15bn (£13.6bn) and increased spending on infrastructure, defence and security. By contrast, Schulz is “struggling to ignite his candidacy with a platform of social justice amid a stretch of 12 quarters of unbroken growth”, says Bloomberg. “Polls suggest Germans are more concerned about migration than about pensions or the economy.”