Mario Jung does not fit the profile of a political hardliner. The 59-year-old banking clerk, who lives in Magdeburg in eastern Germany, has voted for the country’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the past. But he blames former Chancellor Angela Merkel for pushing the CDU to the left and on Sunday, in the state election in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, he will back the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
He also agrees with the AfD’s hardline immigration policy. The regional elections pose a test for Germany’s political establishment, with the AfD in contention for top positions in the state government. In Saxony-Anhalt, it is poised to become the first far-right force to head a German state government since World War II, with the AfD’s leading candidate, Ulrich Siegmund.
He was dubbed “Germany’s most dangerous man” by the influential magazine Der Spiegel. Before becoming a politician for the AfD, Siegmund was a member of the CDU. The party has been classified as “far-right extremist” in Saxony-Anhalt by Germany’s domestic intelligence service.
The AfD is leading the state by a wide margin in the polls, expected to win more than 40 percent of the votes. The conservative CDU is far behind at just above 20 percent, followed by the Left Party at 12 percent, the Social Democrats at 7 percent and the Greens at 5 percent. Depending on which smaller parties clear the threshold to enter parliament, the other parties could potentially form a majority without the AfD.
But German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) recently ruled out cooperation with both the Left Party and the AfD, a party whose officials have used Nazi slogans. In its election platform, titled “The Country First”, the AfD calls for the abolition of the right to asylum, the confiscation of cash and assets of asylum seekers and mass deportations. Anyone who insults German identity or the “historical-cultural entity Germany” could face a prison sentence, according to the campaign.
The party also seeks to ban the “Antifa” movement, cancel public broadcasting and reverse the shift towards renewable energy. Founded in 2013 as a Eurosceptic party in the aftermath of the European Union financial crisis, it gained ground during Merkel’s 2015 decision to admit about a million refugees, many of them Syrian. It has since shifted further right, dominated today by a nationalist wing and hardline factions in the east, hardline immigration positions and opposition to sanctions on Russia.
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