The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is pushing a heady mix of Prussian imperial nostalgia and a shrewd form of Euroscepticism that catches the mood of post-globalist German voters.
The insurgent Right-wing party of Alice Weidel – a gay, Hayekian, Mandarin-speaking Goldman Sachs alumna, who worked for the Bank of China and wrote a paper on the Chinese pension system – is flying high as elections approach next month, reaching 22pc in the latest INSA poll.
The German media fears that the “shy voter syndrome” may understate the strength of the AfD support. If the final tally reaches the mid-20s, it could leave Germany in much the same state of political paralysis as France, unable to form a stable government on the broken rubble of the old party system.
Foreign investors have persuaded themselves that Friedrich Merz, the Christian Democrat leader, is going to win a landslide on a manifesto of free-market reform, fiscal stimulus and a blitz of investment. Germany is more likely to end up with the immobilism of another grand coalition, unable to rid itself of a social democrat dinosaur wedded to rust bowl industries and the obsolete model of the last century.
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Germany’s ‘Dexit’ party is becoming a serious threat to the European project https://t.co/mI9zkP5sH4 via @@YahooNews
— Dan Brosman (@dan_brosman) January 17, 2025
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