Expert blames other parties for German far-right's election gains

Mainstream parties are responsible for the gains made by the German far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Brandenburg state election on Sunday, according to the extremism expert Gideon Botsch.

After leading in the polls, the AfD came a close second to Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) in the election in the eastern state of Brandenburg. The far-right party got 29.2% of the vote, a meaningful gain from the 23.5% it received in the 2019 election.

At a press conference held by the Moses Mendelssohn Centre for European-Jewish Studies in the state capital of Potsdam, Botsch explained that "the AfD's topics were only able to dominate the election because the democratic parties allowed them to."

The political scientist, who leads the centre's research unit on anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism, said that the strategy adopted by the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) to outdo the AfD with a staunchly right-wing populist election campaign "has not worked."

Despite coming out on top, Botsch said the SPD should not misunderstand this election as a victory.

Those who voted for Brandenburg's incumbent SPD state premier Dietmar Woidke because they considered him to be the most promising alternative to the AfD won the SPD decisive percentage points, he explained, warning that democratic parties should not count on this effect in the medium term.

According to Botsch, there is also no direct causal link between the overall economic situation and support for right-wing parties.

"A political strategy that primarily hopes to counter the AfD by improving economic indicators will not be enough," he concluded.