In the east, the AfD has been getting good results for years. Now it turns out that the party is on the way to becoming a double-digit figure in the West as well. This would make it more than just a pure "Eastern party".
In Lower Saxony of all places, a federal state in which the AfD did not reach more than eight percent in polls even during the refugee crisis in 2015, the result could now be 10 to 11 percent. In June, the AfD was still a meager 6 percent in the polls. An alarm signal for the other parties - including the left.
While everyone else, with the exception of the Greens, is likely to lose, a doubling of the AfD's 6.2 percent in the 2017 state election is quite possible. But why actually?
Albrecht von Lucke, political scientist and editor of the monthly magazine "Blätter für deutsche und Internationale Politik" contradicts the thesis that until now the AfD has only been a purely "Eastern party".
In an interview with ntv von Lucke explains: "The AfD is by no means just an Eastern party, it wasn't even in the flight crisis of 2015. It always gets nationwide support when the crisis is particularly big, but also doubts about the dominant politics . Then the hour has come for populists with simple answers."
The crisis is indeed great. In the latest RTL/ntv trend barometer, two-thirds stated that the higher prices for petrol and diesel were having a particularly negative impact on their households. If politicians in Berlin then organize conferences of prime ministers, at which it is already clear in advance that there will be no resolutions, then the AfD does not have to do much to score points.
Nevertheless, it is true that the AfD is significantly less successful in the west than in the east. Lower Saxony could represent a comeback and be a first indication that the future of the AfD may not only lie in East Germany.
Götz Frömming, parliamentary director of the AfD parliamentary group, said on ntv: "We now also have a fixed core clientele nationwide that we can rely on. It's a little under 10 percent. How much higher that depends what mistakes the others are making - from the point of view of the citizens. Then protest voters will come back to it."
In addition, according to Frömming, a look at other countries shows that the existence of a "right-of-centre political offer" is now part of democratic normality: "Germany has seen this development, which was already apparent earlier in Austria or Sweden, with a certain Delay made up."
Especially for the decimated left, the tailwind of the AfD should be difficult to bear. After all, the AfD and the Left Party are courting the same clientele, agrees Albrecht von Lucke. "Obviously, the AfD is having more success with it. A right-wing populist protest is currently more effective than a left-wing populist one."
In addition, one has to state: "In the West, the sensitivity that used to exist is apparently disappearing, not to vote for such a party as the AfD, which is decidedly right-wing in parts," says von Lucke. The pro-Russian stance of the AfD leadership around Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla doesn't hurt, on the contrary: "The fact that the AfD is extremely close to Russia is apparently irrelevant for many people in the West," says the political scientist. The AfD promises the completely irrational but quick solution: if we just stop supplying weapons and end the sanctions, then the war would soon be over and with it our energy and economic problems. "This is exactly what resonates with many people throughout Germany."
The big question is: What does the AfD actually want? Does she want to help govern at state or even federal level? Frömming keeps it open: "Of course, for the good of the country, you have to be prepared to enter into a middle-class coalition with the reformed CDU or the FDP. We do want to have a say in government, but of course not at any price."
If the AfD really gets over ten percent in the elections in Lower Saxony on Sunday, then it should at least have reached Berlin's political scene that the supposed swan song of the AfD is over. And winter in Germany hasn't even really started yet.
