Right-wing populists: Fewer refugees means no less AFD

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Horst Seehofer showed restrained pleasure. The number of first-time applications for asylum fell by 16 percent to around 185,000 in 2018 compared with the previous year; in 2016, at the time of the refugee crisis, around 722,000 people applied for asylum. So in the sense of the Federal Interior Minister, who presented on Wednesday the current migration report.

Although attention for refugees has declined in some parts of society, the issue remains on the agenda. "Migration will continue to accompany us for many years," Seehofer said. Also from the Union faction in the Bundestag muted tones were heard. The migration is normalizing, but still is the "irregular immigration significantly above the level of ten years ago," said the CDU / CSU Group Vice Thorsten Frei.

The new East Party

The low-key rating is correct. Because not only the number of refugees has changed, the political landscape in Germany has become another. The AfD has managed to get into the Bundestag and all state parliaments with the fear of migrants, with lump sums, exaggerations and an anti-Islamic discourse.

2019 will be a special challenge for the opponents of the AFD, because this year is in three East German countries - Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony - elected. There the party comes in polls to values ​​of 20 and more percent. It seems to be about to outstrip the left - the once classic East Party. Their influence now extends beyond AfD voters.

According to a survey of the Allensbach Institute published in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", 37 percent of East Germans do not want the AfD's participation in governments, but their involvement in parliaments, including significant political influence. This does not say anything about actual election results in the fall, but much about the difficulties the other parties are facing.

The constitutional protection is distrusted

This is unlikely to change the latest measure of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Parts of the party - the "Young Alternative" and the right wing around Björn Höcke in the "wing" - are recently "suspected cases" and thus theoretically also with intelligence agents to observe. Especially in the east of Germany, the representatives of the "wing" are particularly strong, this Wednesday they hold a meeting in Saxony. Höcke in Thuringia and Andreas Kalbitz in Brandenburg are also top candidates in their respective countries, both can build on the support of AfD party leaders Alexander Gauland and Jörg Meuthen.

Plump, but quite effective parts of the AfD play with the memories of the "We are the people" mood from the turn of 1989, to move the activity of the constitutional protection in the vicinity of the GDR secret service Stasi. Coupled with a widespread skepticism towards the West German democracy system, the AfD acts on this topic in the mainstream of East German society.

This mood in the East is also favored by the rejection of the constitutional protection in large parts of the Left Party, as recently formulated by the left-wing party leader Katja Kipping: "To know that the AfD is anti-democratic, I do not need constitutional protection." The office, she said, was abolished; that had been the attitude of her party for a long time.

In fact, however, the left is acting contradictory: In Thuringia, where Bodo Ramelow is the only Prime Minister of the Left Party leads a Red-Red-Green coalition, the AFD was declared last year under the SPD Interior Minister of the state constitution protection to "test case". The story is even more bizarre, if you know that Ramelow sued in the fall of 2013, then as a Member, successfully before the Federal Constitutional Court against his many years of observation by the intelligence agency. A verdict from Karlsruhe, which raises the hurdle to the observation of deputies ever since - and from which also benefit the AfD parliamentarians.

In this mixed situation, it is unlikely that the measure of the protection of the Constitution will have a significant impact on AfD supporters. The example of the Left Party - which was observed for years by the Federal Office and some regional offices - shows how little it was possible to scare off voters and supporters.

Union, SPD, Greens and FDP therefore only remains to seek the hard political confrontation with the right-wing populists. This includes a pragmatic, realistically oriented refugee policy, which can point to sinking numbers. The current development, as documented in the migration report, is a building block here. But not more.