German elections show need to intensify anti-racist struggle – Workers World

7.10.17

German elections show need to intensify anti-racist struggle – Workers World: These parties, which have dominated the German government since post-war West Germany was stabilized, together got barely more than half the votes.

The worst news was that the ultra-right wing, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), came in third, with 12.6 percent of the votes. For the first time the AfD, founded in 2013, won seats in the Federal Parliament, or Bundestag.

Political observer Victor Grossman aptly describes the AfD, which has drawn together leaders from various racist and neo-fascist parties, as divided between “far right racists and extreme right racists” in his Berlin Bulletin of Sept. 25.

The AfD won 94 of the 709 seats in the Bundestag, which will give these ultra-rightists even more media coverage to spew their racist viewpoint.