The majority of Germans believe that the AfD will soon have a prime minister in the east. If that happens, it will have consequences for you too.
With the past ones In the 2023 state elections in Hesse and Bavaria, the AfD became the second and third strongest force. This September there will be elections in three eastern German states: Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg. The AfD is at the top of the polls in all three countries.
A survey by the opinion research institute YouGov on behalf of dpa According to a majority of 53 percent believe that AfD will soon appoint a head of state government.
9 sentences from the election program show what the AfD wants
The success of the party, which is partly classified as “certainly right-wing extremist”, worries SPD leader Saskia Esken. For them, an application for a ban is still an option to take action against the “clearly anti-democratic” party.
Carsten Schneider, the Federal Government's Eastern Commissioner (who pointed out differences between East and West on German Unity Day), has spoken out against banning the AfD. He said he didn't think anything of it Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) on January 3, 2024. A party ban would not only be difficult to enforce legally, but in the worst case scenario would lead to even greater solidarity.
The goal must be to make it clear to AfD voters “what the consequences of their substantive positions would be,” says Schneider. BuzzFeed News Germany has the principles of the party that this describe nine AfD election posters quite wellsummarized again for you.
1. The AfD wants to return to the educated elite
The AfD wants to return to the “performance principle”, which should increase the educational opportunities of children of academics and reduce those of children from working-class families. The demand means that there should be fewer comprehensive schools, as well as inclusive schools where children with disabilities are taught together with children without disabilities.
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2. The AfD wants to tax the rich less and the poor more
The AfD wants to abolish inheritance tax and wealth tax, which should make rich people in Germany even richer. In the AfD basic program The party also writes that, analogous to the debt brake, it is calling for a “binding tax and contribution brake” and a “significantly higher basic allowance”.
Such goals can also be found in the election program 2017. The AfD's tax concept is “based on the ideas of Paul Kirchhoff,” said Frauke Petry, the former AfD party spokeswoman. It stipulated that earnings over 20,000 euros would be taxed at 25 percent, regardless of whether they were 20,001 or 500,000 euros. The The AfD program is therefore a plan for the richwrote an author at the time Frankfurter Rundschau.
3. The AfD wants less child care
“The Alternative for Germany is committed to the traditional family as its guiding principle. […] A misunderstood feminism one-sidedly values women in working life, but not women who are only mothers and housewives,” says the basic program. And
“The needs of our children for individual care must be taken into account again.”
What sounds good at first (who doesn't want to be valued as a housewife and of course it's nice when children are cared for individually) is actually social policy like from the 1950s, says Schneider. There are no daycare places for under three-year-olds under the AfD, nor are there parental allowances (there is not a word about this in the program). “This must be terrible for many East German women,” says the Eastern Commissioner Schneider SZ.
4. The AfD wants to tax those without children more
People who don't have children, even for good reasons, according to paragraph 11.3 in the AfD program, should pay more taxes than families. This works with a so-called “family splitting”. In theory, a couple with two children should only pay taxes on half as much income as a couple without children.
5. The AfD wants a better relationship with Russia
In paragraph 4.3 of the basic program, the AfD writes, despite the war in Ukraine, how important the relationship with Russia is for Germany. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has already described the AfD as the “party of Russia”. Here are twelve examples of why he is probably right.
6. The AfD wants you to take care of your parents at some point
“We want to strengthen care for family members in need of care in a familiar family environment,” writes the AfD in its program. There should be more care allowance so that “adult children can consciously decide to care for their parents”.
Sounds good? Only if you have a choice, right? Since the AfD wants to make “individual home care a main component of social security systems,” this is likely to be difficult. Besides, they still are mostly women who take on care workwhich in this case probably affects them in particular.
7. The AfD is against abortion
In its basic program, the AfD speaks of a “welcome culture for newborns and unborn children” (more welcome than At least migrants, whom the AfD repeatedly criminalizes across the board). She “complains” that there are 100,000 abortions every year and “opposes all attempts at abortion […] even to declare it a human right.”
8. The AfD wants you to “work compulsorily” after six months of unemployment
Instead of citizens’ money, the AfD wants “activating basic security”. The idea: “If you can work, you should work”. Anyone who is unemployed and does not have a new job after six months should do “citizen work”. So work in home care, in civil defense or in welfare – unpaid, of course.
Only those who do this work should receive social benefits. The German philosopher Ronald Blaschke speaks of “forced labor”. The party hopes that this will have a “strong positive steering effect on taking up employment subject to social security contributions”.
9. The AfD has fallen victim to “gender madness”.
Anyone who votes for the AfD because he or she is totally against the alleged “gender compulsory” will probably be shocked. In the past six years, only one party has submitted proposals on the topic of gender. Bingo: the AfD itself.
A left-wing politician pointed out this fact in the Bundestag at the end of June 2023. Because we couldn't believe it, we… BuzzFeed News Germany we looked at it again ourselves. And it's true: The AfD submitted the most gender proposals in the Bundestag.
(With material from dpa)
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