Germany's far-right AfD sets sights on next election after sharp rise
Weidel led the AfD to the best result for a far-right party in Germany's post-Nazi history on Sunday, doubling its share of the vote from 2021 to reach a stunning 20.8%.
In comments just hours after final results came in, Weidel said the party's ambition is to become the strongest force in the next Bundestag - the country's lower house of parliament - after the next election, replacing the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU).
"We have been able to form a very good platform here, a strategic platform that has the best prerequisites to overtake the CDU within the next few years," said Weidel.
The next German election is scheduled for 2029.
Weidel and her fellow co-leader Tino Chrupalla have already confirmed they plan to remain as co-chairs of the party's faction in the Bundestag following the successful campaign, which came despite the AfD being under investigation by domestic intelligence services as a suspected right-wing extremist group.
As conservative leader Friedrich Merz has ruled out working with the party - a stance known in Germany as the "firewall" - the AfD is set to become the largest opposition group in the Bundestag, offering it more speaking time and an additional platform to communicate its anti-immigrant views.
Merz, whose bloc made up of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), finished top on 28.5% of the vote, is set to replace outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats (SPD), but he will likely need to work with the SPD to form a viable coalition in parliament.
Chrupalla earlier hailed the AfD's performance as "sensational," arguing that the result showed residents of eastern German in particular, where the party topped the polls, no longer accept the firewall.
"East Germans have clearly shown that they no longer want a firewall," Chrupalla told local radio station rbb inforadio.
Sunday's election showed a clear divide along old Cold War lines in the reunified Germany, with the AfD having won overwhelmingly across the formerly communist German Democratic Republic.
In the former East German states of Brandenburg, Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the party reached between 32.5% and 38.6% of the vote share.
Results also showed the AfD doing far better in rural areas and small towns across the country, including in the west, while performing more poorly in big cities such as Berlin.
That might account for some of the party's strength in eastern Germany, which is more sparsely populated.
The AfD's domestic surge has coincided with its increasing visibility on the international stage, with tech billionaire Elon Musk offering his support on numerous occasions during the election campaign.
Congratulations came in from far-right circles across the world following Sunday's results.
"The people of Germany voted for change in immense numbers," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wrote in a post on X, days after he hosted Weidel for a meeting in Budapest.
"I want to congratulate Alice Weidel on doubling AfD's share of the votes," he added.
Weidel also said she missed a congratulatory call from Musk overnight.
"This morning, when I turned on my phone or looked at it, I received missed calls in the night from the United States, including from Elon Musk, who congratulated me personally," Weidel said at a press conference in Berlin.
Reaching the symbolic mark of 20% represents a significant breakthrough for the AfD, which was founded in 2013 as a eurosceptic party but shifted its attention toward migration policy following former chancellor Angela Merkel's historic decision to keep Germany's borders open during the 2015 migration crisis.
While the party saw a marked dip in the 2021 election, which was dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, the latest result suggests its long-term upward trend is continuing - and the AfD's leaders are happy to play the long game.
"You have to have a little courage to be calm. We have that," Chrupalla said on Monday, adding that the AfD would continue to develop and professionalize its programme.
"And then we will get another 5 to 6% in the next election," said Chrupalla.
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