Shifting targets, growing support: The rise of Germany's AfD
FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Eurosceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) party wear morph suits and wave flags during an event to rally support for Sunday's European Parliament elections at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin May 23, 2014. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo
BERLIN - Germany's domestic security agency classified the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as "extremist" on Friday, allowing for closer monitoring of the country's largest opposition party, which condemned the move as a "blow against democracy".
Here is a timeline for the AfD, Germany's most successful far-right party since World War Two.
2013
February 6 - Founded by right-wing economists, the party opposes Germany helping to bail out Greece at the height of the eurozone debt crisis, rejecting then-Chancellor Angela Merkel's assertion that there was "no alternative".
Headed by Bernd Lucke and Frauke Petry, the party grows quickly, fuelled by ample donations from small businesses and attracting disillusioned conservative and neoliberal politicians and voters.
September 22 - It narrowly misses the 5% threshold for winning seats in that year's parliamentary election
2014
May 25 - The party wins 7% in European Parliament elections, allowing it to send seven members to Brussels.
Though nativist overtones are never far from the surface, the party denies any racist motivation for its opposition to bailing out Greece and other heavily indebted countries.
August - A string of regional election victories in eastern Germany fuels the AfD's move further to the right, and Bjoern Hoecke, the party's nativist leader in the state of Thuringia, becomes one its most emblematic figures.
2015
The refugee crisis sees more than one million, mostly Muslim migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa arrive in Germany, propelling the AfD's nativist wing to the fore and giving the party a toehold in western Germany.
2016
March 13 - The AfD scores double-digit results in west German regional elections for the first time and wins nearly a quarter of the vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt - at the time the best result ever for a far-right party.
2017
January - Hoecke achieves notoriety for describing Berlin's Holocaust memorial as a "monument of shame". A court overrules Petry's attempts to kick him out of the party the following year.
January 21 - The party's growing prominence is signalled by its presence at an international gathering of far-right politicians in Koblenz, where Petry rubs shoulders with France's Marine Le Pen and the Netherlands' Geert Wilders.
September - Petry is ousted, in a defeat for the economic libertarian wing of the party, and is replaced by Alice Weidel, who leads the party to this day, and Alexander Gauland, a right-wing former Christian Democrat.
September 24 - The party wins 12.6% in Germany's federal election, entering the national parliament for the first time and becoming the largest opposition party.
2019
January 15 - The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) places the AfD under examination, and labels The Wing - a nativist grouping within the party led by Hoecke - and the party's youth wings as suspected far-right cases.
2020
April 30 - The Wing is dissolved.
2021
January 20 - The AfD mounts a legal challenge against being classified as a suspect far-right case.
February 25 - The BfV confirms the party is suspected far-right.
September 26 - Partly as a result of growing concerns about the cluster of far-right figures at the top of the party, and partly thanks to a buoyant economy, the party falls to 10.3% in the parliamentary election.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the slowing economy subsequently give the party a boost, and it also benefits from infighting in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's unwieldy three-way coalition.
Leaning heavily into culture war issues with demands for enquiries into alleged mishandling of the pandemic, critiques of modern architecture or rejection of supposed "gender ideologies", the party is able to secure and expand its base.
2022
April 5 - The party's youth wing is declared officially right extremist.
2024
January - A series of scandals - a bombshell report that senior figures had discussed deporting citizens of non-German ethnicity, the discovery of an alleged Chinese spy in one politician's office, and allegations that another had taken money from pro-Russian propaganda outlets - sparks months of protests but fails to sustainably dent support.
Increasingly, the party relies on a strategy of attempting to gum up government, peppering courts and ministries with filings and questions that critics regard as frivolous, in a way that seems designed to slow and discredit the state.
Hoecke is the leading champion of this strategy, deploying slogans that resemble those used by Adolf Hitler's Nazis in a manner guaranteed to command attention.
May 13 - A court rules that the classification as suspected far-right - one step short of Friday's confirmed far-right classification - is justified. The party had called members from ethnic minorities to testify that it was not.
May 22 - Le Pen distances herself from the AfD after Maximilian Krah, one of its most popular figures, fails to condemn Hitler's paramiltary SS in a newspaper interview.
2024
September 1 - The party becomes the first far-right party to top a regional election since World War Two.
2025
January - Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, interviews AfD co-leader Alice Weidel, declaring weeks ahead of a federal election: "Only the AfD can save Germany."
February 23 - The AfD comes second in the federal election, the best result for a far-right party since the German Federal Republic's founding.
March 31 - The party's youth wing is dissolved to make way for a replacement under closer supervision of party headquarters. REUTERS
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
39 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Disorder breaks out in Northern Ireland for third straight night
Riot police members hold their shields while they take position as riots continue in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, June 11, 2025. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne Riot police vehicles line up on a road as riots continue in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, June 11, 2025. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne Demonstrators gather in front of riot police vehicles as riots continue in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, June 11, 2025. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne Riot police members hold their shields while they take position as riots continue in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, June 11, 2025. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne Disorder breaks out in Northern Ireland for third straight night BALLYMENA, Northern Ireland - Public disorder broke out in Northern Ireland for the third successive night on Wednesday with videos and pictures on social media purportedly showing a fire in a leisure centre in the town of Larne after masked youths smashed the building's windows. Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the clips. Hundreds of masked rioters attacked police and set homes and cars on fire 33 kilometres (20 miles) west in Ballymena during the previous two nights in what police condemned as "racist thuggery." Thirty-two officers were injured. Riot police and armoured vans blocked roads in Ballymena on Wednesday evening as a crowd of around 200 people watched on. Two rocks were thrown at a police van and one person kicked the bonnet of a police van, a Reuters witness said. The police vans slowly moved towards the crowd who were warned over a loud speaker to disperse immediately as force was "about to be used against violent individuals." The violence initially erupted after two 14-year-old boys were arrested and appeared in court, accused of a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in Ballymena, located 45 kilometres (28 miles) from Belfast. The charges were read via a Romanian interpreter to the boys, whose lawyer told the court that they denied the charge, the BBC reported. Police are investigating the damaging of property in Ballymena as racially-motivated hate crimes. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
an hour ago
- Straits Times
Argentina ban on former president Kirchner reshapes political landscape
Former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner stands at the balcony of her home after Argentina's Supreme Court upheld her guilty verdict for defrauding the state, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, June 10, 2025. REUTERS/Tomas Cuesta/File Photo BUENOS AIRES - Argentina's supreme court has effectively banned former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner from government, a move that poses both a challenge and an opportunity for the opposition Peronist party ahead of crunch midterm elections this year. The court upheld a six-year jail term against Kirchner for graft on Tuesday, barring one of the country's most high-profile politicians from holding public office. In the short-term, the decision may enable libertarian President Javier Milei to cement his power base in the October midterm vote, but over the long run it could help revamp the Peronist movement, which was Argentina's most powerful political bloc for decades before being ousted by outsider Milei in 2023. Kirchner, a two-term president from 2007-2015 and a senator and vice president from 2019-2023, faces the possibility of jail time. She will likely be able to push for house arrest because of her age, 72, and the court will decide within five working days whether to grant that request. But she will not be able to run as a legislative candidate in the midterm elections in the province of Buenos Aires, a Peronist stronghold, as she had planned. Nonetheless, the leftist Kirchner, the president and one of the leaders of the Peronist party, may still be able to pull political strings given her strong popular support, especially if she remains out of jail. "Cristina will continue her political career; that's why she's choosing to stay in Buenos Aires, in her department of San José," a source close to the former president told Reuters. Kirchner did not respond to a Reuters interview request. 'MARTYRED LEADER' Peronists are divided over whether her political ban will help the movement reinvent itself or if she will cast an even longer shadow than before, hurting up-and-comers like Buenos Aires governor Axel Kicillof who have clashed with her. "This is detrimental to the renewal, because she's now the martyred leader. She's the center of attention," said a source from Kicillof's Buenos Aires provincial government. Kirchner still enjoys significant popular support from close to 30% of the population, polls show, although she is highly divisive - in part due to the corruption cases against her - and would likely struggle to win election. Analysts said that the court ruling could ultimately allow for the party's modernization, at a time some of its leaders, like Kicillof, claim Peronism as a movement is being banished. "For Peronism, it represents the possibility of renewal. Kicillof is playing the victim and, at the same time, becoming independent," said political scientist Andrés Malamud. The ban against Kirchner will take some of the sting out of her bitter rivalry with Milei, but a new more moderate challenger from the Peronist left could hurt the Argentine president if he slips up. "If Milei can keep the economy steady, nothing will happen, but if this doesn't work, it will probably strengthen Kicillof," said analyst Mariel Fornoni from consultancy Management & Fit. The latest polls showed a tie in the important province of Buenos Aires between Milei's La Libertad Avanza and the Peronist opposition for the midterm elections, according to data from the Electoral Observatory. Victory would not give the ruling party a majority in either chamber of Argentina's Congress, but a larger number of legislators would make it easier for the government to approve privatizations of public companies and tax and labor reforms. "Cristina's conviction gives the government a campaign argument it didn't have. Now it won't need to discuss the economic model," said the Buenos Aires government source. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
an hour ago
- Straits Times
British and Spanish PMs agree Gibraltar deal unlocks 'huge opportunity'
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez attends a bilateral meeting with Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer during the European Political Community meeting at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Britain, Thursday, July 18, 2024. Kin Cheung/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo LONDON - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in a phone call with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, agreed that a deal on the status of Gibraltar unlocked the opportunity for both countries to advance bilateral relationship, Starmer's office said on Wednesday. "Prime Minister Sánchez congratulated the Prime Minister on his leadership," a Downing Street spokesperson said. "Both leaders also agreed that this development unlocks huge opportunity to advance the bilateral relationship between the UK and Spain, on behalf of the British and Spanish people." Starmer also spoke to Chief Minister of Gibraltar Fabian Picardo, the spokesperson said, adding that they both agreed the agreement would allow them to "plan for the long-term while protecting British sovereignty." REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
