| Submit your comments on this article | |||||
| Europe | |||||
| 'Anti-Semites' and 'agent of the Kremlin' are preparing to stir up the German parliament | |||||
| 2024-02-26 | |||||
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Kamran Hasanov [REGNUM] Germany, suffering from an economic crisis, is also experiencing a political crisis. Its beginnings were observed back in 2017, when the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party burst into the Bundestag, taking away points from the ruling SPD and CDU. Then Chancellor Angela Merkel needed five months to put together a coalition. This was the longest government formation in the history of Germany. Now the crisis has become even more pronounced. Society is becoming increasingly polarized; traditional parties do not fully reflect the opinions and interests of voters. Some echoes of this crisis can be seen in local elections. For example, Olaf Scholz’s “traffic light coalition” lost the elections in Hesse and Bavaria miserably last year. The stakes are higher now because parliamentary elections are approaching. Moreover, the majority of citizens (59%), according to Bild polls, want them to be held ahead of schedule - this year. Oddly enough, it would even be beneficial for Scholz, with his record low rating, to agree to early elections. After all, every day he loses, perhaps, the only trump card of any politician in Germany - success in the economy. Finance Minister Christian Lindner said bluntly: “We are becoming poorer and less competitive.” His skepticism is confirmed by statistics. The OECD cut its forecast for GDP growth this year by half - from 0.6% to 0.3%, and the IMF - from 0.9% to 0.5%. German media are hinting at an imminent recession; of the major economies, only Argentina, with its crazy inflation, is doing worse. In 2025, Scholz may lose his second trump card - Ukraine. The counteroffensive has failed, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are surrendering territories, and the EU is having problems with the allocation of funding and weapons. The Chancellor is trying to get other member countries to increase spending, but no one is in a hurry to do this. Scholz had difficulty accepting the responsibility of arming Ukraine, starting with helmets and ending with tanks. Now he was left virtually alone. Further support for Kyiv may turn out to be not only pointless, but also dangerous. Recently, the Bundestag out of harm's way blocked the CDU/CSU proposal to transfer Taurus missiles capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 500 km. Everyone understands that strikes deep into Russia could lead Germany to war. In the wake of the economic crisis and the failure of the Ukrainian “case,” new parties began to form in Germany. In the past three months, it became known about the emergence of at least three major players. The pioneer was Sarah Wagenknecht : having split off with ten politicians from the Left faction, she formed the party “For Sanity and Justice”. Its supporters could be millions of Germans who oppose the transfer of weapons to Ukraine, anti-Russian sanctions and the “green concentration camp” where Scholz wants to drive the energy sector. Immediately after the creation of the party, its rating was 7% - this is enough to enter parliament. Wagenknecht was a consistent supporter of normal relations with Russia and criticized sanctions. And now she warns against dragging Germany into a direct war, which, in her opinion, is inevitable in the case of Taurus deliveries. At the beginning of the year, the former head of the Federal Service for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maasen, made his presence felt by creating his own “Union for Values.” Maasen is a former head of counterintelligence who was fired from his post in scandal in 2018. Then, in the city of Chemnitz, a refugee killed a German citizen, and Maasen was dismissed for his sympathy for right-wing extremists. Now he has gathered in his new party the dissatisfied from among the “Merkel” faction of the CDU/CSU, who are haunted by the same economic crisis and the war in Ukraine. Although Maasen condemns the SVO, he also wants peace through negotiations, and considers Vladimir Putin a “skillful politician.” The former head of counterintelligence has long been among the most active critics of the transfer of German weapons and missiles to Ukraine. “If we deliver weapons rather than first aid kits, we obviously risk becoming participants in the war. You have to imagine this: we are now a warring party against Russia... Because of the supply of weapons, we can now become the target of Russian attacks. This means that Germany will be drawn into the war, and we will not have our own military goals,” he warned a year ago. Maasen considers his former colleagues insufficiently right-wing and conservative and hopes to win elections in the eastern states, where the AfD’s position is traditionally strong. Sarah Wagenknecht, who, by the way, like Maasen, opposes uncontrolled migration, also wants to achieve victory in the Landtags (local parliaments) of the three East German states in the near future. The third challenge to the German political mainstream was Dava.
The three new parties differ in their ideology and programs, but they are united by the degree of hatred that “traditional” political forces feel towards them. The Maas party is accused of right-wing extremism, Wagenknecht of working for the Kremlin, and Dava of anti-Semitism.
In certain cases, we can talk about the prospects for a coalition of new forces. It is difficult to imagine an alliance between the “migration” Dava and the anti-migration Wagenknecht and Maasen. However, a coalition of the latter two is quite possible precisely on the basis of control over migration and unity of views on freezing the Ukrainian conflict. Theoretically, AfD could also join them. It will be easy for them to find a common language with the former head of counterintelligence Maasen, and with the Wagenknecht party, according to AfD co-chairman Tino Hrupalla, they are also ready for coordination and cooperation. Related: Alternative for Germany: 2024-02-03 Ukrainian Perspective: Invasion of Ukraine: February 2, 2024 Alternative for Germany: 2024-01-31 Germany’s AfD sets up talks with France’s Le Pen to clarify immigrant expulsion spat Alternative for Germany: 2024-01-29 Germany’s far-right AfD party suffers regional electoral defeat after mass protests | |||||
| Posted by:badanov |