2024-09-04 05:42:09
The AfD is using the terrorist attack in Solingen for its final campaign sprint in Thuringia. However, experts and several Thuringians see little additional electoral effect.
For the AfD in Thuringia, the terrorist attack in Solingen is a welcome springboard in the final stretch of the election campaign. “Höcke or Solingen,” party officials said on Saturday, and the message is clear: anyone who is now afraid of terror by foreigners like the Syrian Issa al-Hassan must vote for the right-wing populists.
But does this calculation work? Is the terror in Solingen really something like a “gift” for the AfD in the final stretch of the election campaign? Can it benefit from it?
On the Monday after the attack, t-online was in Erfurt and spoke to local residents who are going to vote on Sunday about this question. The tone among them was unanimous: hardly anyone would vote for the AfD just because of Solingen, and anyone who is not already a supporter of the party will not be one now either.
“I don’t think that will make more people vote for the AfD,” said Regina Bischoff, 81, a pensioner. “Those who aren’t voting for the fascists now aren’t doing so because of Solingen.” However, she is very worried about the people who are for the AfD regardless of the terrorist attack:
“Many people don’t seem to be concerned with history,” she says. Germany has already experienced a lot of bad things, and the AfD wants to return to those times with its policies. “Of course, immigration policy must change, be better controlled,” says Bischoff, who is a supporter of Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Left Party). “At the same time, we all have to be clear: once the foreigners are gone, who will do the work?”
Annerose Hentschel sees it similarly. “I know people in my extended circle of friends who vote for the AfD,” she says. But they were already convinced of her position before Solingen. “But that’s no less bad. It scares me.”
Overall, it seems that people have too high expectations of politics. “If we are honest,” says Hentschel, “we are doing well. And the problems that some people seem to have can hardly be solved at the state level.” The migration issue, for example, but also the aid to Ukraine, are not a matter for Thuringia, but a task for the federal government.
The statements of the people in Erfurt are in line with what opinion researchers such as Stefan Merz from the polling institute Infratest Dimap expect. With regard to the Solingen terror attack, he says: “This is certainly grist to the mill for the AfD, which is already mobilizing on this issue. I don’t think the attack will have a particularly big impact on the election.”
We will have to wait and see whether the CDU can score points at the expense of the SPD, for example, because it is seen as having more competence in this area. Like Forsa boss Manfred Güllner, he points out that the fatal attack on a police officer in Mannheim immediately before the European elections did not have any major impact. “The AfD is already mobilizing its supporters on the issue of migration,” says Güllner. “They feel empowered, but they will go to the polls anyway.”
That is also the opinion of Klaus-Dieter Scholtz, a native of Erfurt and 72 years old. “The AfD is in the lead and will definitely stay that way,” he says. But he cannot imagine the right-wing populists getting even more support: “Solingen is a long way away from here.” Will he vote? He does not yet know. “In the end, politicians only keep a few of their promises. That frustrates me.”