The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), now the biggest opposition party in the , is steadily gaining support, with some polls suggesting that the AfD has pulled ahead of Chancellor conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and its allied Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU).
In September’s municipal across North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most-populous state, the AfD tripled its share of the vote from 2020.
AfD’s popularity among Russia Germans
Researchers have found that the enjoys particular support among ethnic Germans who resettled from the former Soviet Union and their descendants, people often referred to as Russia Germans.
According to a recent study by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 31% of Russia Germans are prepared to vote for the AfD. “This share is significantly higher than the AfD’s average support among Germans with a migrant background, which stands at 19%,” the report read.
People from post-Soviet countries make up 12.4% of all voters with migrant backgrounds in Germany, or roughly 900,000 people, according to calculations by the DeZIM research center.
Anti-immigrant party on integration councils
One of the most unexpected outcomes of the vote was the result of the elections to the integration councils, advisory bodies that represent the interests of migrants and naturalized German citizens.
AfD representatives will now dominate these councils in several cities across the state. In Paderborn, the AfD took first place with 24.5% of the vote; in Detmold, it was 27.9%. In Bottrop, the party won 26.2%, finishing second and trailing the SPD by only two votes.
Only people with migrant backgrounds are eligible to vote in the integration council elections, including foreigners with legal residency, naturalized German citizens, and children of immigrant parents who acquired German citizenship at birth. Ethnic German resettlers can also take part, but must first register as voters.
So, in NRW, residents with migrant backgrounds ended up electing representatives of a party that pursues an anti-immigration agenda, including calls for “,” a far-right term that refers to deporting not only noncitizens, but noncitizens with migrant backgrounds, as well.
CDU/CSU to AfD
According to German weekly Focus, Paderborn and Detmold, where the AfD won the integration council elections, are located in the administrative district with the highest share of Russia Germans in NRW.
“It’s obvious that in many municipalities the AfD enjoyed strong support, and in places with large numbers of Russia Germans or resettlers, that support was even stronger,” said Andreas Wüst, political scientist at the Munich University of Applied Sciences.
The politics of Russia Germans appear to have taken a turn around 2015 and 2016, when hundreds of thousands of displaced people applied for asylum in Germany, with most of them fleeing the conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan. Before that, studies showed that Russian Germans tended to support the conservative CDU/CSU bloc.
With the / in charge during those years, Russia Germans appear to have begun shifting their support to the AfD.
AfD’s Russia-friendly stance
Wüst, who studied the voting behavior of Germans with migrant backgrounds, links Russia Germans’ sympathies toward AfD to the fact that they have strict views on who can become a German citizen.
“For example, adapting to German culture, as well as having German ancestry as a basis for citizenship, are factors that matter more to resettlers, including Russia Germans, than to other groups,” Wüst said.
Unlike most other German parties, the AfD has taken a Russia-friendly stance on certain issues. Ahead of the national election in February, the party did not include a condemnation of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine in its manifesto. Party co-leader also promised to rebuild the sabotaged.
This might have helped the AfD win over Russian-speaking voters. “Of course, people maintain ties with Russia, their roots remain, and a Russian-German identity persists,” Wüst told DW. “That’s why and support for Ukraine are often met with skepticism.”
AfD recruits Russia Germans
Though Russia Germans are one of the largest demographics of voters with migrant backgrounds, they still only represent a small percentage of the overall electorate.
Still, the AfD has clearly worked to reach this group of voters. For many years, the party’s Bundestag group had a commissioner for Russian-German affairs in former MP Eugen Schmidt. Several Russia Germans are also party members, and the AfD distributes its programs in Russian as well.
This approach has drawn enthusiasm from citizens with migrant backgrounds, who are generally reluctant to vote.
“But they become much more active when approached directly, when a connection is made with them,” said Wüst. He argues that other parties should reach out directly to those groups of citizens who see politics as distant and irrelevant. “It’s clear that the AfD has managed to do this quite successfully,” he concluded.
Edited by: Ben Knight
The post The AfD is drawing support from Russia Germans appeared first on Deutsche Welle.
