Political scientist Dr Antonios Souris said part of the AfD’s success was down to a successful social media campaign.
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The Alternative for Germany (AfD) European candidate Maximilian Kurler has been excluded from the newly elected European Parliament delegation, with René Aust taking over from there.
Kula has been expelled from the AfD, which is seeking to rejoin the Identity and Democracy (ID) group in Brussels after Marine Le Pen threatened to expel the party for being “too extreme”.
Speaking at a press conference in Berlin, AfD co-chair Alice Weidel called on the German government to call early general elections.
“The public wants us to hold government to account,” Aust told reporters at a conference announcing his new role.
Weidel said the Green Party was finished. “People now understand what it means to have the Greens in power. They ruin everything. They destroy the base. They’re not a liberal party, they’re a prohibition party,” she added.
Co-leader Tino Krupalla said voters wanted to see nuclear energy returned to Germany and for internal combustion cars to continue running.
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won Sunday night’s election, but the AfD performed well, especially among younger voters.
Political scientist Dr Antonios Soulis said part of the AfD’s success was down to successful social media campaigns, but that the three governing parties should stop trying to compete with each other.
He also urged parties to “think about policy solutions to the problems” and said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz needed to start explaining his policies to the public.
Dr Souris said there were some positive signs in the results and praised the record-breaking voter turnout of 65% – around 65 million people living in Germany were eligible to vote.
“There have been very interesting developments in Germany. The emergence of a strong democratic opposition with the CDU and CSU is always a good sign for democracy,” he said, but added that there were also “worrying developments” about “large regional disparities in the right-wing vote”.
Despite his party’s historic defeat in the European elections, Scholz has ruled out early elections, and Weidel said his party aims to form a new government in next year’s 2025 federal election.
