Bavarian leader Markus Söder on Monday issued a stern warning over the rising popularity of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), as opinion polls suggest that support for the far-right party continues to grow following February’s federal election.
“Let’s not allow our country to be destroyed,” said the Bavarian state premier at an event in Abensberg, to the north of Munich.
“I am telling you clearly now: No to the AfD taking over Germany and Bavaria.”
German liberty was “more fragile than ever,” Söder, whose conservative party is a partner in the national governing coalition, warned.
Söder was speaking at the annual Gillamoos festival, which traditionally begins in the morning and sees high-profile figures of Germany’s main political parties addressing supporters and other revellers while they enjoy a big pint of Bavarian beer.
AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla also addressed the crowd at the festival, expressing confidence that the anti-immigrant and anti-establishment party, currently the biggest opposition force in parliament, would win the country’s next election scheduled for 2029.
Söder said the AfD’s aim was “to divide, to weaken and to develop different form of democracy.”
AfD leader predicts 2029 election victory
The AfD won regional elections in the eastern state of Thuringia last year – marking the first time since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II that a far-right party has won a statewide election in the country.
Domestic intelligence has classified the party as a suspected far-right extremist organization over what it considers to be xenophobic and anti-democratic tendencies. An upgrade of the assessment to confirmed extremist issued earlier this year has been suspended due to a legal challenged brought by the AfD.
Regardless, opinion polls following February’s parliamentary elections, which saw the AfD garner its best-ever result at national level at around 20%, suggest that support for the party remains high and is growing.
Chrupalla, who leads the AfD together with Alice Weidel, said he was certain that the party will come out on top in the country’s next general elections scheduled for 2029, in remarks to supporters at the festival on Monday.
“We will get this ship back into shape,” Chrupalla told some several hundred attendees at his address in Abensberg.
The party has the answers and ideas that citizens want to hear, the AfD leader said, vowing to paint the country blue – in a reference to the AfD colours.
Both the AfD chief and the party’s leader in the Bavarian state parliament, Katrin Ebner-Steiner, called for large-scale deportations of criminal migrants and those without a right to stay.
All those who are in Germany illegally, Ebner-Steiner said, “will be removed from the country by the hundreds of thousands.”
“We will deport, deport, deport until the runways in Munich are glowing.”