14 July 2013

Germany's anti-euro party stalls before election

Just three months since its launch in a blaze of publicity, Germany's anti-euro party, "Alternative für Deutschland" (AfD), is failing to strike a chord with voters and is unlikely to fulfil predictions it will pose a threat to Chancellor Angela Merkel in September's election.

Despite recent developments in Greece and Portugal reviving fears of another flare-up in the euro crisis, polls show support for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) languishing around 2 per cent, short of the 5 per cent needed to enter parliament. Broad public approval for Merkel's handling of the eurozone crisis and a pro-European political consensus combined with Germany's relative immunity to the problems means there is little appetite for an anti-euro party, pollsters and analysts say.

Led by a motley group of mainly academics and journalists, the AfD also lacks a charismatic figure in the style of Italy's Beppe Grillo. It has even suffered from a perception that some members have links to the far right. "There is simply no question mark over the currency itself in the election", says Carsten Koschmieder, a politics researcher at Berlin's Free University. Like many other analysts, he sees the AfD scoring around 2 per cent.

Launched in April with the headline-grabbing policy of an "orderly dismantling of the euro", the AfD made waves at first. It has signed up 15,000 members and has 39,000 Facebook fans, which may be tiny in an electorate of 62 million, but analysts say the party could still take votes from the conservatives and FDP, possibly even robbing the FDP of crucial points it needs to enter parliament and Merkel needs for another centre-right government.

AfD leader Bernd Lucke, a conservative economics professor, is not perturbed by his poll ratings of about 3 per cent, which he says is "not so bad". "After all, lots of people don't know us yet. The campaign will change that", he is quoted in the current print version of Der Spiegel. "The euro crisis is very complicated and a sizeable portion of the population still follows the government. That our arguments have not yet reached many people doesn't mean we are wrong", he said.

The stigma of subscribing to extreme views in Germany, haunted by its Nazi past, has alienated voters, say pollsters. For Germans, who above all fear instability, single-issue parties are anathema.

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