Berlin/Cottbus, Germany – Germany is preparing for high-stakes elections, amid fears that far-right sentiment rising while migration policies sit at the centre of political debate.
In Cottbus, a city in eastern Brandenburg, the mood is tense as voters prepare to head to the polls , with the rest of Germany on February 23 after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition government led by his Social Democratic Party (SPD) collapsed last November.
Outside the city centre, Jana Zistel, a German resident in Cottbus, is not sure which party to support, but is certain of her stance against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has skyrocketed in popularity among eastern cities.
“Yes, I know many people are big supporters of the AfD here, but I just don’t understand it. Germans, too, are foreigners in other places”, she told Al Jazeera.
Known for its anti-migration views, the group’s success marks the first time in decades that a far-right party in Germany has gained such popularity.
According to the latest polls, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is leading the polls, followed by AfD. Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) is in third place.
Refugees do experience the changing attitudes toward them in Germany, according to Judith Wiebke, a spokesperson for PRO ASYL, a German pro-immigration organization.
Wiebke claimed for Al Jazeera that fear has increased in immigrant communities as the election draws nearer.
“We get the feedback that in the Syrian community, there is new fear for their future in Germany, and the Afghan community]too,] is worried with regards to calls for regular deportation flights to Afghanistan”, she said.
The firewall crumbles?
The leaders of the 27-member bloc frequently argue over how to put a unified migration and asylum policy into place. Migration is a contentious issue in the European Union.
Germany has, however, maintained a relatively open-door policy for migrants. Angela Merkel, the CDU/CSU party’s former leader, declared in 2015, “Wir schaffen das”! or “We can do it”! and welcomed countless asylum seekers in their own numbers. But the CDU/CSU has since soured on immigration.
Chancellor Scholz’s government has, since 2022, eased the process of acquiring German residency and citizenship, easing the path for migrants and refugees and prompting criticism from political opponents.
CDU/CSU party leader Friedrich Merz called the policies “misguided”.
He attributed those policies to a recent wave of deadly attacks that have rocked the nation and claimed the lives of numerous people while campaigning. A two-year-old girl and her mother were killed in Munich last week when a car rammed into a crowd. Nationals from Afghanistan, Syria and Saudi Arabia have been arrested for the killings.
In January, Merz proposed a non-binding resolution in the German Parliament to retrace more asylum seekers who had crossed the border after one of them. It passed, but with the backing of the AfD. That shattered a seemingly impenetrable “firewall” policy that had for decades caused parties to refuse to engage in far-right activities.
Merz’s binding version of the immigration bill was overwhelmingly rejected by Parliament, but shocked opposition leaders accused him of breaking the firewall in passionate speeches. Even Merkel, the former chancellor who had otherwise been absent from politics, condemned her fellow CDU colleague. In protest of an AfD ban, thousands of people across Germany took to the streets to protest.
Scholz’s government, too, has begun stiffening asylum regulations. In August, 28 Afghans were deported. His country’s administration also implemented unusual EU land border checks.
These actions already have an impact on the environment.
According to Carolina Rehrmann, a member of MERA25, an independent German political party, there is a general unrest in Germany where people are unable to express their opinions openly.
“They are being stigmatised and labelled as a collective threat, particularly by the far right”, she added.
Anything but the current government
The AfD, which was founded in 2013, gained notoriety among eurosceptics when it first launched a protest against the EU member states’ decision to bail out Greece, including Germany.
Then, in 2015, as waves of asylum seekers moved into Europe, AfD rhetoric swung to immigration, and the perceived dangers of Muslim migrants.
“Remigration” – a policy that would see mass deportations of immigrants and naturalised citizens, scrapping of the euro, and military conscription are some of the party’s major promises.
Due to alleged economic disparities between east and west Germany following reunification, which has caused public outcry, the AfD’s stronghold is in eastern cities like Cottbus. By maintaining a strong TikTok presence, the party also succeeded in appealing to a young audience.
Ines Heider, the independent candidate for the Revolutionary International Organization (RIO), who claims open borders and the end of Israel’s weapons, said, “This is a protest vote because people are frustrated.” German media calls the group “left extremist”.
“Zero percent of Germans seek an alternative because they want this current government to run again.” The other day, I went to a strike of bus drivers, and one of them said to me, ‘ I don’t really like the AfD, but I don’t really know who else to vote for, ‘” she said.
AfD shocked the nation in January by sending more than 30 000 fake deportation tickets to migrants to its regional office in the southwest of Karlsruhe. The tickets, dated February 23, said a passenger by the name of “illegal immigrant” was booked on a one-way flight from Germany to a “safe country of origin”.
Marcel Bauer, The Left party’s parliamentary candidate in Karlsruhe, told Al Jazeera that people who received the tickets, ranging from Cameroonian to Syrian nationals, were devastated.
“There were grown men crying to me because they fear for their families after receiving these tickets”, Bauer, who has filed a lawsuit against AfD’s spokesperson in Karlsruhe, said. “For the far right, every migrant is a bad person”, he added.
Before the Second World War, Bauer claimed, Jews were deported by the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party). Now, the AfD is using similar “fascist” methods, he added.
AfD did not respond to a comment request. The party’s candidate for Karlsruhe, MP Marc Bernhard, claimed that everyone should receive the tickets as part of an election advertising stunt and that no one with “foreign-sounding names” would be specifically targeted for the distribution of the tickets.
Rarely do any of the parties, even the outgoing SPD-led coalition, highlight contributions of migrants to the German economy, allowing the AfD’s rhetoric to hold ground, said Marc Helbling, professor of political sociology at the University of Mannheim.
If foreigners were to all leave, Germany’s building and health sectors, among others, would simply stop working, Helbling said.
“From a purely economic perspective, it is clear that Germany, like any other Western countries, are very much dependent on migration”, he added.
Israel’s war on Gaza
Since the start of the war, the genocide in Gaza has had a long impact on German politics, despite being thousands of kilometers away.
Berlin firmly supports Israel, supporting its allies by demonstrating its solidarity in response to past Holocaust guilt. Germany has also been one of Israel’s most prolific weapon suppliers.
Rehrmann, the MERA25 candidate, said Germany’s current anti-immigration rhetoric is also tied to Israel’s war on Gaza.
“We have seen people coming from the Middle East]to Germany], being considered not only as a threat, but also the main source of anti-Semitism in Germany”, she said. Merz and the far-right AfD have said this, they said.
Some 100, 000 people of Palestinian descent live in Germany, a quarter of them in Berlin’s Neukoelln district.
The weekly pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Berlin and other cities are a crime punishable by a two-year sentence or a fine, while local media frequently portrays the demonstrations as fertile grounds for anti-Semitism.
In response to the Bundestag’s stricter definitions of anti-Semitism in November, which rights organizations like Amnesty International and a few MPs warned could infringe on international law.
Police, in January, also banned all languages except German and English at pro-Palestine demonstrations. Officials cited increased crimes and anti-Semitism during the protests, but critics say it’s an attempt to target Arabic speakers.
Since the Gaza war started, Islamophobia in Germany has skyrocketed, according to rights monitoring group, Claim. Incidents, such as verbal attacks on Muslims or attacks on mosques, went up by 114 percent between 2022 and 2023, the organisation reported.
Hugh Williamson, a Human Rights Watch director based in Berlin, said the negative rhetoric, including blaming violence by individuals on entire groups, is concerning. He also rebuffed the mainstream parties’ recommendation to adopt more far-right policies.
Source: Aljazeera
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