		<div class="wpcnt">
			<div class="wpa">
				<span class="wpa-about">Advertisements</span>
				<div class="u top_amp">
							<amp-ad width="300" height="265"
		 type="pubmine"
		 data-siteid="111265417"
		 data-section="2">
		</amp-ad>
				</div>
			</div>
		</div><p>A nationalist party that wants Germany to close its borders to migrants, leave Europe&#8217;s common currency and end sanctions against Russia is predicted to enter parliament for the first time this month.</p>
<p>The party&#8217;s increase in popularity is propelled by voters&#8217; anger at German Chancellor Angela Merkel&#8217;s decision to let over a million refugees into the country since 2015. Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is forecast to take between 8% and 11% of the vote on September 24, giving it dozens of politicians in the national Parliament.</p>
<p>Some polls even project it could even come third behind Mrs Merkel&#8217;s party and the centre-left Social Democrats. If the predictions are correct, it would be the first time in 60 years that a party to the right of Mrs Merkel&#8217;s conservative Union bloc has attracted enough votes to enter the Bundestag.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s quite an achievement for a right-wing party to clear the 5% minimum threshold,&#8221; said Gideon Botsch, a political scientist at the University of Potsdam near Berlin. AfD&#8217;s poll numbers are all the more remarkable because the party has become increasingly extreme since its founding in 2013, he said.</p>
<p>&#8220;German voters haven&#8217;t wanted to vote for a right-wing party in recent decades,&#8221; Mr Botsch said.<br />
&#8220;Germany&#8217;s Nazi history is obviously one of the reasons for that.&#8221; </p>
<p>At an election rally last week in the southwestern city of Pforzheim, the mostly male, middle-aged audience gave a standing ovation to party co-leader Alexander Gauland, a 76-year-old former civil servant who sparked controversy last year by saying that Germans do not want to live next to a black football player.</p>
<p>Mr Gauland, a former member of Mrs Merkel&#8217;s Christian Democratic Union, made headlines again recently for suggesting that the government&#8217;s integration tsar should be &#8220;disposed of&#8221; in Turkey, where her family emigrated from before she was born.</p>
<p>Mr Gauland touched on a subject the party&#8217;s supporters are particularly anxious about: the influx of migrants from Muslim-majority countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. &#8220;Only if we defend Europe against a new Islamic invasion do we have a chance to remain a majority in this country and survive,&#8221; he told the crowd.</p>
<p>Mr Gauland&#8217;s anti-Islam comments fell on fertile ground in Pforzheim, at the northern tip of Germany&#8217;s Black Forest. His party achieved a surprise victory there in last year&#8217;s regional election.<br />
It now has seats in 13 state assemblies and the European Parliament.</p>
<p>Observers say AfD benefited from Pforzheim&#8217;s large population of so-called Russlanddeutsche, ethnic Germans who emigrated from the former Soviet Union and hold more conservative views than the general population.</p>
			<div style="padding-bottom:15px;" class="wordads-tag" data-slot-type="belowpost">
				<div id="atatags-dynamic-belowpost-68ed791a5f32f">
					<script type="text/javascript">
						window.getAdSnippetCallback = function () {
							if ( false === ( window.isWatlV1 ?? false ) ) {
								// Use Aditude scripts.
								window.tudeMappings = window.tudeMappings || [];
								window.tudeMappings.push( {
									divId: 'atatags-dynamic-belowpost-68ed791a5f32f',
									format: 'belowpost',
								} );
							}
						}

						if ( document.readyState === 'loading' ) {
							document.addEventListener( 'DOMContentLoaded', window.getAdSnippetCallback );
						} else {
							window.getAdSnippetCallback();
						}
					</script>
				</div>
			</div>
Discover more from London Glossy Post
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
