{"id":304164,"date":"2025-02-25T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T08:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=304164"},"modified":"2025-02-26T08:23:37","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T08:23:37","slug":"conservatives-win-german-election-but-far-right-afd-doubles-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=304164","title":{"rendered":"Conservatives win German election but far-right AfD doubles support"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deborah Cole \u2013 The Guardian Feb 25, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The conservative opposition has won the most votes in Germany\u2019s general election, but a dramatic surge by the far-right Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland (AfD) is likely to complicate the formation of a government to help spearhead a European response to growing global threats.<\/p>\n

The CDU\/CSU candidate, Friedrich Merz<\/a>, was preparing on Sunday night to try to form a ruling coalition after clinching almost 29% of the vote from a high turnout.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to express my respect for our political rivals,\u201d he said, referring to fellow centrists. \u201cIt was a very tough campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we need to talk to each other and as quickly as possible form a government for Germany that can take action so that we can do the right thing at home, be present again in Europe<\/a> and make sure the world sees that Germany again has a reliable government.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AfD, buoyed by anger about immigration, violent crime and high energy costs, got about 21% of the vote \u2013 finishing second and nearly doubling its result at the last election in 2021.<\/p>\n

The party\u2019s jubilant chancellor candidate and co-leader, Alice Weidel<\/a>, cheered the outcome with AfD officials including the extremist firebrand Bj\u00f6rn H\u00f6cke<\/a>, who has been convicted of using the banned Nazi slogan \u201cAlles f\u00fcr Deutschland\u201d<\/a> (Everything for Germany) in campaign speeches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a historic success for us \u2013 our best result ever,\u201d Weidel told the broadcaster ARD. \u201cWe extend our hand to offer cooperation with the CDU. Otherwise change won\u2019t be possible in Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the mainstream parties, however, have pledged to maintain a \u201cfirewall\u201d barring formal cooperation with the anti-migrant, pro-Kremlin AfD<\/a>, which attracted high-profile endorsements from Donald Trump\u2019s confidant, Elon Musk<\/a>, and the US vice-president, JD Vance<\/a>, during the short, intense campaign.<\/p>\n

Trump hailed the election\u2019s outcome. \u201cMuch like the USA, the people of Germany got tired of the no-common-sense agenda, especially on energy and immigration,\u201d he wrote in a post on Truth Social. \u201cThis is a great day for Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Merz struck a blunt tone, saying Trump had made it \u201cclear that [his] government is fairly indifferent to Europe\u2019s fate\u201d and that Germany would have to wait to see \u201cwhether we will still be able to speak about Nato in its current form\u201d when the alliance meets for its next summit in June.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, the absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA\u201d in defence matters, Merz said.<\/p>\n

Continues ..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A surge in support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) means that the established parties will form a coalition to keep the AfD with its hard line policies on immigration from power <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=304164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304165,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304164\/revisions\/304165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}