Buscador avanzado

Sahra Wagenknecht at the launch of her new party Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – Reason and Fairness in Berlin, Germany, 8 January 2024. Photograph: Bernd von Jutrczenka/AP

Germany’s favourite “firebrand politician”, Sahra Wagenknecht, has finally launched her long-awaited new party, the awkwardly named Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) – Reason and Fairness. After years of speculation, the German and some of the international media went into overdrive, predicting that the “leftwing conservative” party (Wagenknecht talks about combining job security, higher wages and generous benefits with a restrictive immigration and asylum policy) would “shake up” the German party system and “could eat into the far right’s support”.

But is a party led by Wagenknecht, a former member of the far-left Die Linke (The Left) party, really the “miracle cure” for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)?…  Seguir leyendo »

Sahra Wagenknecht, líder de la alianza que lleva su nombre, comparece ante la prensa el pasado 23 de octubre en Berlín. JOHN MACDOUGALL (AFP)

A menudo, y erróneamente, asociamos el populismo con la extrema derecha. Silvio Berlusconi y Gerhard Schröder eran populistas de centro. Desde esta semana, Alemania tiene un nuevo partido populista, de extrema izquierda.

Este partido está liderado por Sahra Wagenknecht, una antigua dirigente del partido Die Linke (La Izquierda) que dimitió y que ahora ha creado su propio movimiento político rival. Lo insólito para la política alemana es que este movimiento —precursor de un futuro partido— lleva su nombre, Alianza Sahra Wagenknecht por la Razón y la Justicia.

Wagenknecht quiere reconstruir a su imagen y semejanza la vieja izquierda moribunda. Se ha llevado a nueve de los 38 diputados del partido.…  Seguir leyendo »

The leftist politician Sahra Wagenknecht apparently now has a different idea of what “left” means. John MacDougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

On Monday morning, Sahra Wagenknecht, the most charismatic politician in Germany’s Left party, led an uprising against it. A longtime member of the national Parliament and until 2019 a co-leader of the Left’s parliamentary delegation, Ms. Wagenknecht apparently now has a different idea of what “left” means. She announced that she and nine fellow Parliament members will start a new party in January to court voters who share her discontent.

Ms. Wagenknecht has been hinting at the break for months. The Left party descends from Communist East Germany’s old ruling party, which Ms. Wagenknecht joined in 1989, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall.…  Seguir leyendo »

Supporters of the Alternative for Germany party assemble in Berlin on May 27, 2018. (Michael Sohn/AP)

Last month, the Turkish government sought to ban the People’s Democratic Party (HDP). Germany denounced the proposal. Turkey alleges that the party is affiliated with the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey, the United States and the European Union designate as a terrorist organization — although the HDP rejects the claim. Germany argues that parties should only be banned as a last resort, since democracy requires a vibrant opposition and a system in which all citizens’ opinions are represented.

But Germany itself has banned, and attempted to ban, parties in the past. Just last month, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency announced its intention to place its largest opposition party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), under surveillance, even though the AfD has no alleged affiliation to terrorist groups.…  Seguir leyendo »

A protester against lockdown measures in Berlin last year. Alternative for Germany has sought to improve its electoral standing by embracing anti-lockdown radicalism. Credit John Macdougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In November, as Covid-19 cases began to rise, thousands of people gathered in Berlin to protest against restrictions. In among the conspiracy theorists and extremists were several lawmakers from the country’s main opposition party, the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany.

It was striking to see legislators mingle with conspiracists in the streets before heading to the parliament for a debate. Yet it wasn’t too surprising. The party, known as AfD, has sought to improve its electoral standing ahead of the national election in September by associating with the anti-lockdown movement, an amorphous mix of conspiracy theorists, shady organizations and outraged citizens.…  Seguir leyendo »

A rally by the right-wing party Alternative for Germany last year. The German experience suggests that democracies must establish defenses against internal extremist threats. Credit Jens Schlueter/EPA, via Shutterstock

Should a government agency put a democratically elected political party under surveillance if the party is feared to be a threat to the democratic order?

This question is the subject of fierce debate and a legal battle here. Late last month, the German media reported that the domestic intelligence service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, was poised to declare the far-right Alternative for Germany party a “suspected case” of antidemocratic extremist activity. The party’s anti-immigrant and anti-Islam talk has emboldened far-right extremists, and some of its officials have ties to extremist groups.

The “suspected case” designation would give the intelligence service broad powers to surveil the party’s politicians and staff members, including tapping their phones and monitoring their movements.…  Seguir leyendo »

Germany has been thrown into political turmoil after the resignation of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, head of the ruling conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and designated successor of Chancellor Angela Merkel. The move stunned the political establishment and underlined the growing power and influence of the German far right.

On the surface, the resignation of Kramp-Karrenbauer, also known as AKK, is connected to her failure to command enough control over her party and deal with the fallout of the recent election in the German state of Thuringia, where a politician of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) was elected prime minister (and later stepped down amid massive protests) with the help of the CDU and the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), in defiance of Kramp-Karrenbauer’s instructions to reject the racist and revisionist AfD.…  Seguir leyendo »

Chancellor Angela Merkl of Germany casting a ballot at the Bundestag earlier this month. Credit Filip Singer/EPA, via Shutterstock

Women in Germany won the right to vote in 1918, but a century later they still do not enjoy equal representation. Though the country is led by a woman — who will, most likely, be succeeded by another woman — fewer than a third of the members of the federal Parliament, the Bundestag, are female.

That’s why leading figures from all major German parties are now calling for parity: a 50-50 quota for male and female representatives in the Bundestag and the 16 state-level Parliaments. But is achieving a gender balance in Germany’s legislatures worth weakening another hard-fought accomplishment, the right to free electoral choice?…  Seguir leyendo »

Andrea Nahles, Chairwoman of the German Social Democrats, speaks to the media in Berlin last week. Credit Robert Schlesinger /Getty Images

What does it take to make a major political party so frustrated with itself that it prefers therapy over governing?

The German Social Democrats are mired in a sort of depression. Call it power-phobia. The party governs the country as the junior partner with the center-right Christian Democrats, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel — yet many members fear that carrying on in this coalition might destroy them.

The party seems to be in free fall. In recent elections in the state of Bavaria, the Social Democrats, known by their German acronym SPD, scored their worst result ever, sliding from 20.6 to 9.7 percent.…  Seguir leyendo »

Sean Gallup/Getty Images Supporters of Germany’s far-right AfD party holding a banner that reads, “Chancellor-Dictator Resignation Now!” on the day that Chancellor Angela Merkel was narrowly elected for a fourth term, Berlin, March 14, 2018

I spent the fall working at a wire service here in Berlin. When something newsworthy happened, I would often be dispatched to a street corner or subway entrance to ask people what they were thinking about. Usually, they were thinking about the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the far-right party that entered parliament for the first time in the elections this past September. What did it mean for Germany when, months after the election, the possible coalition government collapsed? “The AfD would gain in power.” What might happen if another so-called grand coalition between the center-left and center-right parties, Germany’s third since 2005, were to form?…  Seguir leyendo »

Prohibición de partidos políticos

Existe en la República federal de Alemania una cierta experiencia histórica relacionada con la prohibición de partidos políticos cuyo ideario se muestre radicalmente contrario a los valores y principios de la Constitución en vigor.

Así ocurrió con la herencia de los nazis. En 1949, y como si no hubiera pasado nada, se creó un partido político que era continuador del nacional-socialista que pedía respetar al "soldado alemán" y abordar de nuevo la "cuestión judía" aunque con métodos menos expeditivos que los empleados por Hitler. El Gobierno de Adenauer reaccionó y solicitó al Tribunal Constitucional su ilegalización a lo que este accedió declarando que tal organización "es contraria al orden democrático, desprecia los derechos fundamentales, está edificada sobre el principio del caudillaje (Führerprinzip) y sus dirigentes se hallan estrechamente ligados a los del partido de Adolf Hitler".…  Seguir leyendo »

Jens Spahn at the Bundestag in Berlin last month. Having served in the Ministry of Finance, Mr. Spahn has a keen sense for Germany’s economic, political and financial entanglement with the world. Credit Clemens Bilan/European Pressphoto Agency

Ever since Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats lost five million voters to the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany in September, mainstream German conservatives have been in a panic. This is not just the usual blame game after a major electoral setback. It’s a long-simmering crisis finally boiling over — and Ms. Merkel is at the heart of it.

The past decades have put conservatism in Germany to an existential test. The grand currents of contemporary history in the Western world have smashed the shrine of its principles. Globalization and migration challenged the Christian Democrats’ embrace of a German “Leitkultur,” the notion that there is a single, coherent “leading culture.”…  Seguir leyendo »

At the end of January, Germany’s neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) introduced a bill in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s parliament to fine or throw in prison every foreigner who enters the state without the proper paperwork. The proposal was the latest in a long line of inflammatory proposals the NPD has put forth since it gained seats in the state’s parliament in 2006. Like every other NPD proposal, it was voted down.

Even though the sparsely-populated state is currently the only one in the country with NPD representatives in office, many German politicians see the party as more than a local nuisance. They believe that the NPD’s presence in state parliament, however limited, threatens the country’s democracy, tarnishes Germany’s reputation abroad and gives the party a platform to propagate dangerous extremist views.…  Seguir leyendo »

Katja Suding fought hard. The Free Democratic Party’s lead candidate in last month’s state election in Hamburg, Germany, even had herself photographed with two of her colleagues posing as “Charlie’s Angels.” Such stunts are out of form in the staid world of German politics, but the Free Democrats, a pro-free market, pro-civil liberties party also known as the Liberals, had nothing to lose: Since 2013 they have been absent from the Bundestag for the first time in their history, and have been hemorrhaging members and funds.

Ms. Suding’s ploy worked: The Free Democrats won 7.4 percent in Hamburg, enough to get them into the city-state’s Parliament.…  Seguir leyendo »

I had heard about U.S. political polarization before I landed here. I read about poisoned political landscapes, two parties competing every day in a kind of political mud-wrestling contest, deep racial divisions.

After my arrival, it was obvious I had basically read the truth.

And you know what? I feel a little ashamed because I enjoy the fighting, the debates and the oddities, like an old man standing on a stage talking to a chair. For me, this is a huge dose of political stimulant.

Why? Because I'm tired of politics without fighting, without real differences in content, without tough scuffles from time to time.…  Seguir leyendo »

The sudden roar erupting from the Jägerklause bar in east Berlin’s bohemian Friedrichshain district late on a recent Sunday sounded like the usual soccer-match pandemonium. But the crowd inside, with their jeans and sneakers and easygoing looks, didn’t seem like typical soccer fanatics.

Nor did they look like political operatives — but that’s what they were: members of the upstart Pirate Party, which had just scored a key electoral victory in the small western state of Saarland.

The German Pirates, founded in 2006 and long dismissed as a niche party obsessed with copyright reform and online privacy, picked up four seats in the Saarland regional Parliament, twice as many as the once strong Green Party — and far more than the pro-business Free Democrats, who were shut out.…  Seguir leyendo »

When the Berlin wall fell apart, back in November 1989, fears that Germany's forthcoming reunification would lead to the revival of violent nationalism and bitter revisionism were looming all over Europe. Were those anticipating the Third Reich spirit's renaissance right? Looking at the reunified Germany 20 years on, they surely were not.

Ever since the wall came down, Germany's political establishment has made efforts to ease the anxieties of its neighbours to the east, namely Poland and the Czech Republic. Critics of Germany's détente with both countries have been marginalised and deprived of any tangible influence on German politics.

Evidence of this tendency was visible this week, when foreign minister Guido Westerwelle intervened to stop a figure unpopular with Poles being appointment to a museum post.…  Seguir leyendo »

The rise of Die Linke (the Left) in Germany is one of Europe's great political puzzles. In recent times it's the only major socialist party that has become established in a larger state; in the face of the financial crisis, its programme should be of great interest, and not just in the Federal Republic.

Yet the first peculiarity of the party is that it in fact has no programme, only platforms for specific elections. This absence of anything resembling a political philosophy, as well as the great internal fragmentation of the party, is explained by the fact that Die Linke emerged from the merger not just of two left-wing parties, but of very different political cultures: the remnants of state socialism in eastern Germany, on the one hand, and a post-1968 radical milieu and discontented trade unionists in western Germany on the other.…  Seguir leyendo »