05 September 2026 | 12:16

READING: 1 minute

“The success of the AfD is the consequence of a general discrediting of the parties (CDU, SPD, FDP, Greens) involved in governing coalitions at the federal or regional level in Germany.” This is how French political scientist Jean-Yves Camus, who directs the Observatoire des radicalités politiques at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès in Paris, comments to Adnkronos on the strong showing for the AfD forecast by polls conducted on the eve of the regional vote in Saxony-Anhalt. “Several economists predict a recovery, but the effects of stagnation are being felt, particularly in the Länder of the former German Democratic Republic, which experienced the difficulties of a sudden adjustment to a market economy and an industrial crisis,” he explains.

“In these regions formerly subject to the communist dictatorship,” Camus continues, “public opinion, as the AfD leader in Saxony-Anhalt Martin Reichardt explains, is by its nature mistrustful of what appears to be a new official discourse that, like the former GDR’s, is not regarded as conforming to ‘the truth.’ Consequently, the AfD captures an electorate that wants a clear system change: stopping immigration, denigrating multicultural society, and once again teaching in schools the greatness of Germany.”

“More explicitly,” Camus adds, “Reichardt says that, despite the dictatorship, the GDR was a ‘real’ German national state with an ethnic definition of the nation, which is paradoxically correct. The ‘solidarity with brother peoples’ was nothing more than a slogan.”