Meanwhile ...

Posting has been even less frequent than usual as I am spending time in Budapest and discussions revolve round Hungarian politics, that puts our own problems into perspective. I might write about that when I get back to base. In the meantime, the city is as beautiful as ever, the sun shines, the food, wine and coffee are excellent and this evening I am going to a party at a newly opened hotel. On the rooftop, no less.

However, I did manage to pick up this story from Germany: Deputy chair of German anti-euro party resigns. It seems that the AfD is going the way of small parties all over the world: falling out amongst each other as the party does or does not change directions from the original intentions. (Oh dear, now what does that remind me of?)

The deputy chairman of the German eurosceptic party Alternative for Germany (AfD) stepped down Thursday (23 April), officially over the leadership's handling of a scandal with one of its members.

In an interview with a German newspaper however, Hans-Olaf Henkel cited worries that “right-wing ideologues” are taking over the party.

Henkel told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the AfD party leadership should clearly state that it will keep course with its original goals - to dissolve the eurozone and keep Germany an EU member - and not become an anti-immigration party.

If there is no such clarification, “then the AfD will fall. That is my firm conviction”, said Henkel, who is an MEP.

During its two-year history, the young political party has been struggling to define itself.

When Henkel was elected to the European Parliament in May 2014, together with six other party members, there was some internal debate over which political group to join.

Henkel ruled out working together with the UK Independence Party, which wants the UK to leave the EU altogether. The seven AfD MEPs became members of the more mildly eurosceptic centre-right ECR group, which features mainly members of the British and Polish conservative parties.

Obviously, I hope that the AfD, which until now struck me as being reasonably sensible though, perhaps, not thinking far enough, will survive and flourish. It is my view and I have stated it often enough, that the survival of the European Union depends entirely on Germany and her attitude. Once the Germans and their leaders decide that the European project is not the right way forward it will be over though the fall-out is likely to be quite frightening unless we prepare.

Not only Sweden

This article (whose understanding of what is and what is not far right is sadly inadequate) in the Wall Street Journal [behind a paywall but you can find it directly through Google] reminds us that on the same day as the Swedish Democrats got their near 13 per cent the Alternativ fur Deutschland (AfD) won more than 10 per cent of the vote in two state in the east of the country.

This is the nearest we come to some kind of an explanation:

Behind the erosion of support for mainstream parties is the failure of Europe's leaders to resolve the region's economic woes. Much of Europe remains in a deep economic funk. Popular frustration over high youth unemployment and cuts to welfare and education spending, meanwhile, has benefited the parties out of the mainstream.

"Politics is about alternatives and the populists are formulating the alternative, from Scotland to France," says Ulrike Guerot, a political scientist with the Open Society Initiative for Europe in Berlin.

Though local issues tend to dominate the parties' political agendas, party leaders are united by a deep skepticism of the Brussels-based EU, which they accuse of hijacking their national sovereignty.

"All these right-wing populist parties are united through an anti-EU agenda because they view the EU as kind of a centralist power," said Ruth Wodak, a professor at Lancaster University in the U.K. who is publishing a book on the rise of anti-immigrant parties in Europe.

Really, who are these strange people who view the EU as kind of a centralist power? Come to think of it, why is a populist party necessarily bad and extreme right-wing? Is it because the left, who, as I recall, were very strong on appealing to the masses, cannot gather any kind of a popular support?

Here is the Wall Street Journal article [see above] about the German elections:

The party won 12% of the vote in the state of Brandenburg and 10.6% in Thuringia, according to preliminary results. Two weeks ago, the AfD won its first seats in state parliament during elections in Saxony when it garnered nearly 10% of the vote. It narrowly missed winning seats in the national elections last year.

It is true that the turn-out was low (around 50 per cent) and that always favours smaller parties. Nevertheless, refusing to acknowledge that parties whose programme is not all that shocking though outside the establishment political discussion, does not bode well. After all, neither of these parties is voicing support for President Putin, unlike, for example the Dear Leader (re-elected unopposed for another term and, probably, for life) of UKIP.

AfD might get seats

While we are getting all excited (well the media is or, at least, some of it) about a possible UKIP MP from Clacton it looks like the far younger Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) looks set to win a seat or two in the State of Saxony.

Exit polls after voting closed at 6 p.m. (1700 BST) showed Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), who have run Saxony since German unification in 1990, winning almost 40 percent, followed by the Left and Social Democrats in second and third place.

The Eurosceptic AfD, founded in early 2013 to oppose the euro zone bailouts, beat all forecasts with about 10 percent, according to exit polls.

I accept the argument that the German system is less inimical to small parties than the British one but I see no point in saying that UKIP (or whoever) has won seats in local councils. State government in Germany is considerably more important and powerful than local councils in this country. That may be a pity but it is a fact.

Results to be announced later this evening.

UPDATE 21.54 AfD apparently won around 9.6 per cent.

Merkel wins again

Not that there were any serious doubts about that but it does not look like the CDU-CSU will achieve that coveted absolute majority that would have been the first time since 1957 when it did happen under Konrad Adenauer (who, incidentally, won four elections).

Results are a little strange or so it looks at the moment. The CDU-CSU seems to be on 42 per cent, the bloc's best result since German reunification, the SDP on 25.5 per cent and the rest are in a disarray:

There was bitter disappointment for Merkel's allies in the outgoing government, the market-friendly Free Democrats (FDP), who suffered a humiliating exit from the Bundestag, the first time they will be absent from the chamber in the post-war era.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD), a new eurosceptic party that had threatened to spoil Merkel's victory by breaking into parliament for the first time, appeared to have come up just short of the 5 percent threshold required to win seats.

The young movement's hostility to euro zone bailouts and call to cut weaker southern members loose from the currency area resonated with many crisis-weary voters and may act as a brake on Merkel's conduct of European policy.

The radical Left party was set to be the third biggest force with about 8.5 percent, just ahead of the environmentalist Greens, who shed votes to finish near 8 percent.

Final allocation of seats will not be known till tomorrow. The AfD have done very well but it is sad not to see them in the Bundestag.

As a number of media outlets point out (for instance Deutsche Welle) the CDU-CSU could try to govern alone and not in a coalition but their majority would be extremely narrow and legislation very difficult.

More to German history than Hitler

Or so say the moderately eurosceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. It has been my contention for a very long time that as soon as Germans seriously start appreciating that point (and many do already) the end of the EU will be nigh. It is kept together by constant references to those twelve terrible years from 1933 to 1945 and studious avoidance of everything that happened before and after.

In a report in The Irish Times we read that AfD is trying broaden its policies beyond just being against the bail-out and talking about foreign policy, harking back to that undoubted genius, Count Otto von Bismarck.

“After the experiences of the Hitler years we Germans have a tendency to view the definition and pursuit of national interests as per se a bad thing,” said Mr Alexander Gauland, a founding AfD member, in Berlin.

“This view is shared neither by our friends and neighbours nor our co-players on the world stage.”

Mr Gauland said it was time for Germany to look further than Hitler into its past for a reappraisal of the European politics of Otto von Bismarck, the Iron chancellor who united Germany.

In particular he said Germans should show greater understanding for Russia, given Russia’s support for German interests over the centuries. Neither Germany nor Europe had an interest in a further weakening of “Russia and, with it, the entire Euro-Asian space”. “We Germans sometimes forget that Russia stood by Germany at important points in its history and defended Prussia from collapse,” he said, praising Russian support during the foundation of the German Reich in 1871 and German unification in 1990.

Actually, he is wrong about Russian support for German reunification in 1990 but moderately correct about the rest. However, what we should all be looking at is the natural Anglo-German alliance, which has a long history as well, going back beyond the German Reich.