According to a survey, the AfD received around 20 percent of the votes.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The SPD falls behind the AfD in terms of voter favor. In the Sunday trend, which the opinion research institute Insa collects for “Bild am Sonntag”, the Social Democrats lose one point compared to the previous week and come to 19 percent. The AfD, on the other hand, can maintain its value of 20 percent from the previous week and is thus one point ahead of the Chancellor’s Party.
The Greens are slightly uphill. They can gain a point, coming in at 14 percent this week. The FDP remains at seven percent, the Union at 26 percent. The left can gain a point and would make it back into the Bundestag with five percent. The traffic light would have a total of 40 percent and, as in the previous weeks, would clearly miss a majority.
The President of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Thomas Krüger, warned against dismissing the high approval ratings for the AfD as a protest or a typical East German phenomenon. “I warn against seeing the election of the AfD as a protest,” he told the editorial network Germany (RND). “The voters want this party. That is the seriousness of the situation.”
Certain positions have been established in parts of society that are unacceptable and incompatible with democratic principles. The AfD is “a successful radicalization collective,” said Krüger, with a view to the AfD’s high poll numbers and the election of an AfD politician to the district administrator of the Thuringian district of Sonneberg. According to Krüger, the label “typically East German” rather conceals “the attempt by non-East Germans to explain the phenomenon”.
Last weekend, the AfD candidate Robert Stuhlmann was elected Germany’s first AfD district administrator in the Sonneberg district, which caused horror among many politicians from other parties. The Thuringian AfD is classified and observed by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a secured right-wing extremist.
Klingbeil explains tactics against AfD
SPD leader Lars Klingbeil wants to stop the right-wing populist AfD from soaring in the polls with more citizen proximity. “We need three things,” said Klingbeil in an interview with “Bild am Sonntag” when asked what his tactics against the AfD were. “First: Good politics that tackle people’s everyday problems. Wages, housing, pensions, affordable energy, these are the issues. Second: A political style that doesn’t tell people how they should be, but takes seriously what’s on their minds. And thirdly: get out of Berlin more often and talk to people across the country. We can’t be ‘the ones in Berlin’.”
Klingbeil admitted that the dispute in the governing coalition around the heating law of the AfD had used. “It was too much, it was too loud. The AfD generally benefits from disputes and uncertainty.”
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