The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) issued a radical manifesto for Saxony-Anhalt on Saturday as parties ramp up campaigning for the closely watched state election in September.<\/p>\n
The AfD adopted the manifesto at a state party conference in Magdeburg.<\/p>\n
On the issue of migration, the manifesto calls hardline policies through a “deportation and remigration offensive.”<\/p>\n
However, many migration issues in Germany cannot be regulated at the level of individual states.<\/p>\n
That limitation is reflected in the programme\u2019s language stating the party would seek to push such measures through the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament, in Berlin.<\/p>\n
The AfD also seeks to terminate state broadcasting agreements. Under the proposal, public funding would be conditional on what the party describes as a “credible commitment to the democratic order and a patriotic mindset.”<\/p>\n
AfD state deputy leader Hans-Thomas Tillschneider said during the presentation of the programme that children do not need anti-racism training, but self-defence courses.<\/p>\n
Several hundred people joined protests against the AfD state party conference across Magdeburg, a police spokeswoman told dpa.<\/p>\n
The party is expected to post big gains in the election in Saxony-Anhalt, with opinion polls recently putting it at around 40%, well ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative CDU party at roughly 25%. The vote is set for September 6.<\/p>\n
Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD\u2019s candidate to become state premier, struck a confident tone at the conference, calling for an outright majority so the party could govern alone.<\/p>\n
“Everything is possible, we just have to do it,” Siegmund told the party faithful in Magdeburg, dismissing concerns about an AfD-led government as “nonsense.”<\/p>\n
“There is no reason for any law-abiding citizen to be afraid. There\u2019s no bulldozer rolling through the country flattening everything,” he added.<\/p>\n
Germany\u2019s domestic intelligence agency has classified the party\u2019s regional branch as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization.<\/p>\n
Current state premier Sven Schulze, of the CDU, has ruled out forming a coalition with the AfD \u2014 a political taboo in Germany.<\/p>\n
If the AfD falls short of an outright majority in Saxony-Anhalt, forming a government could prove complex, with a CDU-led alliance likely requiring three or more parties to exclude the AfD.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) issued a radical manifesto for Saxony-Anhalt on Saturday as parties ramp up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[452,393,5,3848,3849,3850],"class_list":{"0":"post-3773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-afd","9":"tag-friedrich-merz","10":"tag-germany","11":"tag-party-conference","12":"tag-saxony-anhalt","13":"tag-state-premier"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}