Germany’s far-right seeks bigger say in new parliament

Representing what was the best performance by a far-right party since the Second World War, 152 members of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) took their seats today when a new parliament was inaugurated at the Bundestag. Amidst fears about economic stagnation, uncertainties related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and concerns about Washington’s changing role under the new Trump administration, AfD emerged second in Germany’s federal election on 23 February, doubling the number of its seats in the Bundestag compared to last time around. 

Holding 152 seats in the new parliament, several of the far-right group’s newly elected parliamentary members have military backgrounds. Many are close to Björn Höcke, leader of the party’s most radical wing. One was previously a member of the banned far-right NPD party. Another, Maximilian Krah, a former member of the European Parliament, once failed to denounce Hitler’s SS in a notorious newspaper interview, thereby causing the French rightwing leader Marine Le Pen to distance herself from the AfD. 

That Krah now sits in the Bundestag, having been suspended from the AfD’s benches in the European Parliament, attests to a resurgent, increasingly confident political party, aware that it has closed in on the election-winning conservatives.  Among the party’s deputies is Mathias Helferich, who was initially elected to the Bundestag in 2021 only to be removed from the party benches when messages were leaked in which he described himself as “the friendly face of the Nazis”. He later said the remark was meant as a joke and he has since been readmitted as an AfD member in full standing.

Before today’s inaugural parliamentary ceremony, AfD insisted that its former leader Alexander Gauland — the oldest member — should open the session as “Father of the House” and not the Left Party’s Gregor

Gysi, the Bundestag’s longest-serving member. Rules had been changed in 2017 specifically to prevent an AfD member opening parliament.”Your tricks won’t prevent our rise“; AfD parliamentary leader Bernd Baumann declared.

In its 12 years, AfD has moved dramatically to the nationalist right from libertarian origins to the point where it stridently opposes Muslim immigration, leans towards Moscow in the war against Ukraine and calls for the European Union be abolished. Now commanding 24% of the seats in the 630-member parliament, AfD is certain to have a palpable impact on chancellor-to-be Friedrich Merz‘s intended government. Already, the latest survey poll shows his lead over AfD has narrowed, a reflection of the compromises the conservative leader was forced to make to ensure passage of the debt package he navigated in the dying days of the outgoing parliament with the help of the Social Democrats, his potential coalition partner, and the Greens. 

While old school centrist deputies in the Bundestag are expected to continue cold-shouldering the far-right AfD representatives, deeming the party undemocratic and anti-constitutionalist, it appears that a new generation of legislators may feel that time has run out for such obduracy and that the need for change is pressing.