Alternative for Germany

Alternative for Germany Logo, Google Images licensed with Creative Commons

Alternative for Germany (German: Alternative für Deutschland, Afd) is a populist ‘fast-growing’ anti-refugee and Eurosceptic party founded in 2013.

According to the Wall Street Journal in January 2015, the party had 'managed to avoid the Nazi label stuck to other right-wing German parties thanks in part to its image as a group founded by sober professors opposed to eurozone bailouts rather than by nationalist rabble-rousers'.

Since then however, the party has increasing shifted towards the right and a hardline anti-refugee stance under the leadership of a 40-year-old Christian chemist and mother-of-four Frauke Petry. She took over in July 2015, prompting co-founders Bernd Lucke and Konrad Adam to quit the party because of the increasing polarisation between factions over direction away from Lucke's original economic focus.

In February 2016 Petry attracted wide condemnation after remarking that refugees should be shot at Germany's borders. She later tried to claim the press had lied about this however an audio-recording of the interview in which she had said this was released by Rhein-Zeitung.

Elections

In March 2016 the party made dramatic gains in Germany's regional elections, entering state parliament for the first time in three regions, reportedly 'off the back of rising anger with Angela Merkel’s asylum policy'.

Views

Attitudes towards PEGIDA

Alexander Gauland, described as a 'party elder' by The Economist, has declared the AfD ‘the natural allies' of the anti-Islam PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against Islamisation of the West) movement and said he would attend a demonstration in December 2014. He has also called for a stop to the migration into Germany of Muslims from the Middle East who 'aren’t willing or able to integrate'.

A party leader Bernd Lucke has, according to the Daily Telegraph, called it 'good and right' that people were expressing their fears by demonstrating with PEGIDA and has written that the movement was 'a sign that these people do not feel their concerns are understood by politicians'. This has been interpreted as indicating support for PEGIDA since other German politicians have strongly condemned the demonstrations. The other two leaders Frauke Petry and Konrad Adam are also said to 'sympathise' with PEGIDA.

An Economist straw poll found that support was strong in the other direction: the magazine suggested 9 out of 10 supporters of PEGIDA would back AfD. But some sources also suggest that AfD has 'faced internal division' over some of its members backing PEGIDA.

Deputy leader and MEP, Hans-Olaf Henkel, reportedly called on party members not to join the demonstrators, saying there could be 'xenophobic or even racist connotations' and reportedly wants the party only to retain an anti-euro message rather than use what The Economist calls 'populist innuendo against asylum-seekers, immigrants and homosexuals'.

However, members such as Björn Höcke, who heads the party's branch in the state of Thuringia in the former East, have been known to use the anti-Islamization PEGIDA marches, concentrated in the eastern city of Dresden, as a platform for gaining support. According to Johannes Radke, a journalist and long-term observer of right-wing politics, "The AfD is very good at getting people who are on the streets [with PEGIDA] to go and vote for them".

Support

In May 2014, AfD had seven candidates gain seats in the European parliament. Its MEPs include deputy leader Hans-Olaf Henkel.

In Germany, AfD is represented in three eastern state parliaments.. In February 2015 it won 6.1% of the vote in the elections for the state parliament of Hamburg, enough to gain it representation for the first time in the Western part of Germany, an important symbolic victory and sign that its support was becoming more mainstream.

In January 2015, the party was said to be 'polling at around 6%', a level which, if sustained 'would clear the 5% threshold for seats in parliament in several critical state elections next year and in the federal parliament in 2017'.

A man reportedly involved in organising the activities of both Patriotic Europeans Against Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA) and the more violent Hooligans Against Salafists (HoGeSa), was some sources claimed a lawyer and member of AfD.

Split

In June 2016, the party split over anti-semitic remarks expressed by Wolfgang Gedeon, a regional law-maker. Thirteen members of the party — including the regional president Jörg Meuthen— quit and form a new alliance called Alternative for Baden-Württemberg.

Funding

To gain state subsidies of up to 2 million euros, the AfD started exploiting a loophole in the regulation in November 2014, raising millions through an online gold shop, where it sold the precious metal at slightly above bank rates. The government passed a new regulation effectively closing the loophole in December 2015, as subsidies would no longer be distributed according to turnover, but to profit margins.

On its website, the Alternative for Germany, now urges its followers to no longer buy gold, but instead donate 120 euros each, half of the sum being tax-deductible.

People

Leadership

In January 2015, the party had three leaders:

• Bernd Lucke - joint party leader in January 2015 until 8 July 2015.
• Frauke Petry - joint party leader in January 2015 sole leader from July 2015.
• Konrad Adam - joint party leader in January 2015 until July 2015.

Others

• Hans-Olaf Henkel - deputy leader and MEP
• Alexander Gauland - a 'party elder'

Former members

• Tatjana Festerling, a former member who attracted criticism in 2014 for praising the Hooligans Against Salafists demo in Cologne, who joined PEGIDA in early 2015 after leader Lutz Bachmann was reinstated.

Funding

Government subsidy loophole

In Germany, electoral rules state the the federal government must match, up to a value of €5 million, any funds raised privately by a political party. In a bid to get the full allocation of state funding, AfD went through a loophole by selling gold bullion online since November 2014. In the two weeks after the scheme was announced they sold gold coins and bars worth €1.6 million. By boosting its income via its gold trade, the AfD ensured that it was entitled to extra subsidies even though the profit was marginal.

In December 2015, the new party funding law was passed, altering the regulation so that only profit, rather than turnover, was eligible for the state subsidy, drastically slashing the AfD's income. The party's deputy leader Beatrix von Storch claimed that the alteration meant the AfD would lose 2 million euros that same year, and immediately issued an emergency call for a 100-euro donation from each of its 20,000 members.

Affiliations

• PEGIDA

Resources

• Philipp Wittrock, The Know-It-All Party: Anti-Euro 'Alternative for Germany' Launches, Spiegel Online International, 12 April 2013,
• Harriet Alexander, and Jeevan Vasagar, Bernd Lucke interview: 'Why Germany has had enough of the euro', The Telegraph, 7 April 2013
• Nicholas Kulish and Melissa Eddy, German Elites Drawn to Anti-Euro Party, Spelling Trouble for Merkel, New York Times, 14 April 2013.