Afd triumphs in Saxony-Anhalt: Bolaffi over weak CDU and immigration

The weakness of the CDU, a strong identity element and the anti-immigration drive are the factors that most influenced the result of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt and the impressive victory of the Alternative for Germany (Afd). A result determined by different causes, “however not attributable to economic factors – from 1991 to today 1.5 billion euros have arrived in the eastern regions from the West – or to the cultural level” of the voters. Political scientist and Germanist Angelo Bolaffi, former Professor of Political Philosophy at La Sapienza University of Rome, explains the result of the regional vote celebrated yesterday in Germany in these terms.

Meanwhile, the local CDU was “internally divided on the conduct to be followed with respect to the Brandmauer”, the cordon sanitaire guaranteed by a pact between the other parties to block the AfD’s access to power from time to time, Bolaffi explains to Adnkronos – citing as evidence of a change of position of at least part of the party in Saxony-Anhalt, and therefore consequently of the voters (83 thousand preferences given to the AfD by former CDU voters) – the “heated internal debates dedicated to this topic by the regional section of the party before the vote”. To confirm the internal divisions – which in any case will certainly not lead to an alliance with the AfD – he adds, “also the fact that the chancellor was kept away from the electoral campaign”.

There is also “a very strong identity element of the deeply Protestant, anti-Western and pro-Russian old Germany” which feels poorly represented by the federal government, led by a “not particularly charismatic” entrepreneur chancellor, coming from North Rhine Westphalia, deep in West Germany, 600 kilometers from Berlin. Merkel, a Protestant who grew up in East Germany although originally from Hamburg, “in some way ensured a connection with that part of the country”. Furthermore, in those regions the pro-Russian propaganda is stronger in clear contrast with the government’s position in Berlin and leverages – for a part of the electorate at least – on a past which is also a component of identity. As Putin put it, “Whoever wants to restore communism is brainless. Whoever doesn’t regret it is heartless.”

“The immigration element was absolutely decisive” for the result of the vote as well as in the electoral campaign of Alternative for Germany, underlines Bolaffi, author among others of ‘The German Heart. The model Germany, Italy and the European crisis’ and ‘The German dream: the new Germany and the European conscience’, recalling that the problem of immigration has long existed in that area: in the early 1990s the law on Gastarbeiter, foreign workers, was revised, introducing for the first time a more stable right to residence and favoring the integration of the second generation, and there were violent riots and incidents in the former eastern Germany.

However, it remains to be remembered – Bolaffi finally underlines when commenting on the alarm over the outcome of the vote – that the five Laender that make up the former GDR have an overall population that corresponds to that of Bavaria and that just under 2.2 million inhabitants live in the whole of Saxony-Anhalt. “It was certainly a breaking vote, an important one, but now we need to see how politics reacts. We are not at the same time as votes repeated before Hitler.” And regarding the objective announced today by Alice Weidel of reaching 40% of the votes in the 2029 legislative elections, “there is a lot of time left”, she points out.