But there’s another major story. Many feared that Germany might shift to the right, following countries like Austria or Switzerland, where xenophobic parties have long been powerful. Instead, Germany’s far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lost 11 seats, receiving about 10 percent of the vote.

Why did the AfD lose votes in this election? In an age where right-wing populists appeal to many voters, the German election results suggest that centrist parties are finding ways to contain the far right.

Why the AfD lost ground

In 2017, following highly politicized refugee inflows entering Europe and Germany, the AfD won 12.6 percent of the vote and 94 seats in the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament. For the first time since World War II, a far-right party had made it into the Bundestag.

The anti-Muslim AfD scored big in Germany’s 2017 election. What does this mean for German Muslims?

Numerous polls since then showed the AfD gaining supporters, even outperforming the Social Democrats at times. But by early 2021, AfD support had ebbed, in part because of moves by Germany’s centrist parties. Instead of engaging in debates about immigration, centrist candidates tried to strike a moderate or even welcoming tone on immigration. And rather than make immigration a central theme in the election, they focused on other issues that German voters care about, including economic security and climate change.

When centrist parties face far-right challengers, research suggests that they have three strategic options: They can move to the right and co-opt far-right positions; they can stand their ground and denounce the far right’s positions; or they can shift the agenda and downplay issues on which the far right thrives — typically issues such as immigration, multiculturalism or crime.

In recent years, German parties have tried out all of these approaches — and, for the most part, they’ve found that co-optation doesn’t work. For example, Markus Söder, head of the Christian Social Union and Bavarian prime minister, learned this lesson the hard way when his party experienced historic losses in the 2018 Bavarian elections. To recapture AfD voters, Söder had styled himself as an immigration hard-liner. After this strategy backfired, he embraced more moderate positions, acknowledging that the co-optation strategy led to a “political near-death experience.”

Angela Merkel’s bloc lost ground in Sunday’s election. So who won?

Co-opting far-right themes may cost votes

Academic research confirms Söder’s assessment. In our recent paper, Winston Chou, Naoki Egami, Amaney Jamal and I studied whether and how mainstream parties could win back AfD voters. We interviewed German voters for 15 months in 2016-2017 in four nationally representative surveys of about 3,000 respondents each.

We found that voters who supported the AfD were much less likely than other voters to switch to competing parties. But using an experimental approach, we also found that this loyalty could be broken. When we presented AfD voters with hypothetical centrist party candidates that favored severe immigration restrictions, up to half of the AfD’s electorate could be persuaded to vote for such candidates.

But our experimental evidence also revealed that adopting xenophobic slogans would probably lead to centrist parties losing far more of their own supporters than gaining far-right supporters. Centrist voters are turned off by candidates who impose immigration bans and espouse anti-immigrant rhetoric. And in systems where voters can choose among multiple viable parties, they are likely to abandon those that flirt with the far right.

It appears that most German politicians had come to a similar conclusion this year. To be sure, there was also plenty of immigration-specific rhetoric, including comments by the CDU’s unsuccessful chancellor candidate, Armin Laschet, that “2015 can’t happen again” — a reference to the million or so refugees entering Germany that year. But analysts also pointed out that candidates often remained vague about references to 2015.

Centrist party candidates who did run on far-right slogans this year tended to flounder. One prominent example is the CDU’s Hans-Georg Maaßen. A former head of Germany’s intelligence agency, Maaßen campaigned on a nationalist, anti-immigrant message in the eastern state of Thuringia. He came in a distant third in a race the SPD candidate won (the AfD came in second). Laschet never openly distanced himself from Maaßen, which could have cost the CDU some votes.

The center zeroed in on economic issues

The election results also showed that talking about issues voters care deeply about — but on which the far right is weak — probably contributed to the strong showing of centrist parties. In our 2016-2017 survey, a sizable share of voters said that issues such as economic inequality and pensions decided their vote. We also found that many of these voters, including AfD supporters, rated the AfD’s competence on these issues poorly. And when we presented voters with hypothetical candidates who varied in their competence and positions on economic issues, we found that candidates that highlighted pensions or increased taxes were quite popular.

Don’t miss any of TMC’s smart analysis! Sign up for our newsletter.

These survey findings help explain the Social Democrats’ victory. In exit polls, voters ranked these issues as most important: Economic and social security (the top issue for 28 percent of voters), the economy/employment (22 percent) and the environment/climate change (22 percent). The SPD campaign’s focus on economic issues — and combination of a centrist chancellor candidate and a left-of-center economic platform — apparently paid off. Voters who switched to the SPD — many of them former CDU voters — cited economic and social security as their most important issue.

At the same time, the SPD avoided the trap set by the AfD — it did not buy into the idea that embracing ethnic diversity is a vote loser. Instead the SPD ran a record number of candidates with immigrant backgrounds, positioning itself as an open and cosmopolitan party that can competently address issues.

Put simply, our research and the 2021 German election results suggest that centrism pays off. Despite AfD rhetoric and media coverage to the contrary, most voters in Germany — and perhaps elsewhere — don’t find harsh anti-immigrant positions appealing. Instead, a centrist stance on immigration combined with center-left economics turned out to be a winning strategy.

Professors: Check out TMC’s ever-expanding list of classroom topic guides.

Rafaela Dancygier is professor of politics and public and international affairs and director of the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice at Princeton University. She is the author of numerous articles on immigration and party politics and has written two books on the topic, “Immigration and Conflict in Europe” (2010) and “Dilemmas of Inclusion: Muslims in European Politics” (2017).

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/germany-e2-80-99s-far-right-party-lost-seats-in-last-week-e2-80-99s-election-here-e2-80-99s-why/ar-AAP9yKw

The post Germany’s far-right party lost seats in last week’s election. Here’s why first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Experienced EU member countries tend to keep their lists rather short since they know that when it comes to the term presidency, the first two and last two months are not very useful. Small and inexperienced states, however, due to overexerting their lists and putting too much emphasis on the term presidency, tend to be unsuccessful.

Germany is intending to utilize this Council presidency for the federal Bundestag elections that will be held in 2021.

However, there is a problem. Are the elections that were intended to be held in 2021 really going to be held in 2021? The answer to this question is not clear because of serious problems with the federal government. Chancellor Angela Merkel is not going to be a candidate for chancellor in 2021. German Defense Minister and new Christian Democratic Union (CDU) President Annegret Kramp-Karenbauer, who is the candidate Merkel has envisaged, has already “gotten old.” The number of CDU and Christian Social Union (CSU) members that are unwilling to see her as chancellor is increasing with every passing day. This situation is not ordinary for CDU voters.

The Social Democratic Party (SDP), which is the partner of the federal government that is getting smaller by losing voters every day, is bothered by itself right now. At the beginning of December, for the first time in its history, it is not going to elect just one president but instead will elect co-presidents. To select the co-president candidates, one of whom is female and the other is male, a vote was held among 425,000 SPD members. In such an important election, only 53% of the members participated and none of the co-president duos received sufficient votes. Because of this, between two co-president duos that received the most votes, a new vote is being cast. The 425,000 SPD members now have the opportunity to elect their co-presidents by voting on Nov. 19 and 30. The election results will be announced on Nov. 30. The delegates within the SPD congress that will be held after the vote must confirm this result. In reality, the co-president election is also an election for whether the party should continue with the coalition or move to the opposition. After electing its co-presidents, the SPD, in any case, has to sit down and bargain with CDU and CSU based on its party base’s disposition, since the majority of the SPD base is already against the coalition. If the coalition is to be continued, there is the expectation of fresh negotiations on terms for the coalition.

In this case, it seems there is going to be a governmental crisis. The CDU and CSU will not find a warm reception in having to negotiate a signed coalition agreement which is valid until the 2021 elections. However, there is another reality: if there is an early election, centrist parties like the CDU, CSU, and SPD know very well that they are going to lose. Perhaps because of this, these three parties know very well that they have to cooperate to remain in government.

The CDU held its party congress in Leipzig last weekend. The new president of CDU, Kramp-Karrenbauer, in an unaccustomed fashion had to ask “the question of trust” to CDU delegates. Only by this question could she manage to receive the applause of all the delegates after her speech, which was longer than expected. Former Federal Assembly group president during the 2000-2004 period, Friedrich Merz, who is her rival in both the presidency and the chancellorship races, also cooperated with Kramp-Karrenbauer this time. The suggestion of electing the chancellor candidate by a vote of all members in the CDU congress has been rejected. Both Kramp-Karrenbauer and Merz remained faithful to the decision that the chancellor candidate should be determined in 2020.

While all of this was happening, CSU President and Bavaria Province President Markus Söder – who would not surprise us if he made a sudden move in 2020 into the chancellorship race as the joint candidate of CDU and CSU – received significant attention when he arrived at the CDU congress as if he were the CDU president. Let us take this detail as a side note for now. If the presidential candidate of CDU and CSU comes from CSU in 2020, nobody should be surprised.

However, due to all of the above developments that we have noted, Germany’s EU Council presidency that will begin in July 2020 is not a very popular subject for now. However, for the CDU and CSU, it seems it is going to play a very important role.

Merkel’s failure in the latest federal elections diminished her influence within the EU. In order for the new chancellor of Germany to be influential and powerful again, the chancellor first must become successful in Germany. However, for them to win the elections in Germany, the term presidency of the EU Council has to be successful.

In short, it will be possible to detect the performance of Germany’s new chancellor candidate through the EU Council presidency.

Source: https://www.dailysabah.com/columns/ozan-ceyhun/2019/11/25/who-is-going-to-be-germanys-chancellor-in-2021

The post Who is going to be Germany’s chancellor in 2021? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.