No time to defend principles

The main intrigue of the elections in Germany: whether the right will break into third place

On Sunday, September 24, the 19th elections in Bundestag will be held in Germany. 61.5 million citizens endowed by suffrage will be able to vote for 598 deputies who, in the next 4 years, will determine the vector of development of the largest and most influential country in the European Union. The elections will be held against the backdrop of serious turbulent processes - both in the domestic and foreign policy of Germany.

As you know, in connection with the civil war in Syria, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Europeans to place as many refugees as possible. "We can handle it!" - This phrase, uttered by Frau Chancelline at the beginning of a full -scale migration crisis, became winged.

In 2015, at the peak of this crisis, law -Populistic was gaining great popularity - by definition of German political scientists - forces that won the support of those whose complex of collective guilt was weaker than fear for their safety: one of the main slogans of this movement - “Islam is not a place in Germany”. Spectators of Russian central channels, for example, are well acquainted with the anti -Islamic “Pegide”, who actively showed themselves in the story with the alleged rape of the Russian girl Lisa in January 2016 (information about rape during the investigation was not confirmed). “Pegida” (“Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West”), which appeared as a local online initiative, demonstrated the ability to consolidate a thousand demonstrators in different cities of Germany on the basis of the anti-Islamic idea.

Another noticeable law -Populistic force is the Alternative for Germany party, which, in the wake of anti -migrant sentiments, gaining up to 14% of the vote of the population. Founded in Berlin in 2013, ADG united people of various, sometimes mutually exclusive political views. Among the in -party unions, for example, there were the “Federal Committee of homosexuals in the“ Adg ”and“ Christians in “Adg” (and the former advocated full equalization in the rights of a single -sex civil partnership with a traditional marriage, and the latter against). The ADG owes its own popularity to a successful moment of occurrence and skillful “interception of the agenda”. However, risking becoming a “party of one question”, the “alternative” sacrificed cohesion.

42-year-old Frauke Petri, a chemist and a former entrepreneur from Dresden, a few years ago it seemed an unconditional leader of the Adg, but in the spring of this year at the Federal Party Congress in Cologne, most members of the ADG opposed the “real politician” and preferred Petri Duet of opposites: Alexander Gauland and Alis Vaidel. Galanda is 76 years old, 40 of which he was at the CDU. In 2012, he became one of the founders of the Berlin Circle - the antimerkele movement for the return of the CDU to conservative sources. The politician denied the law enforcement of Pegida, but once in a conversation with the journalists Frankfurter Algemine (though not under entry), he noticed that "people like Boateng ( *defender of the German national football team. - *mb ) as a football player, but they would not want him to be their neighbor."

Alice Weidel (38 years old) is a former Goldman Sax analyst (which, it would seem, contradicts the anti -globalist position of the “alternative”) and an open lesbian (which, it would seem, contradicts the traditional values ​​of the party). She - for the exit of Germany from the eurozone, but is not limited to the economic agenda. “Family is where children” is her main thesis. According to Vaidel, raising two sons with a citizen of Switzerland, she is ready to protect the “marriage for all” from the advancing Islamization. Di Velt called Weidel “The future“ Adg ”:“ ... looks good, smart, gifted rhetorically and, apparently, ready to sacrifice the principles for the sake of power. ”

According to recent surveys, about 7% of voters are ready to give their vote for the right from Alternatives - half as much as in 2015.

Actually, the intrigue boils down to which of the four “small” parties-“ADG”, a free democratic party, “Soyuz-90”/“green” or the left party-will take third place after the CDS and the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (SDPG).

On September 3, Angel Merkel rather confidently won the television bounty against Martin Shultz, the former deputy of the European Parliament and candidate for the post of Chancellor from the SDPG. At the same time, the HDS functionaries note that “the elections are not won on television”, and they are afraid of interference in the campaign of Russian hackers.

The right hopes not only for Russian hackers, but also for Russian voters. The ADG is trying to lure the protest Russian -speaking electorate in the left party (during the Yugoslav conflict, only the left openly opposed American bombing, which allowed them to win the sympathies of immigrants from the Soviet Union). Now ADG is releasing leaflets in Russian and together with the Compact Magazin Für Souveränität , the only successful right -wing media in the country, is conducting the Russian Congress in Magdeburg, where, among other things, the “chemical weapons of Americans created to destroy the men's population of Germany” are discussed.

Mark Pogrebisssky , especially for "New"

Berlin - Moscow