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As a ast radio DJ, Leif-Erik Holm was a popular wake-up voice in Germany’s northeast. Now he is close to becoming a one-man wake-up call for Germany’s shifting political landscape.
On Sunday the 52-year-old is running to be mayor of his hometown of Schwerin, the pretty capital of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Germany’s northeast Baltic coast.
His political programme promises a pushback against immigration – “we have to put up a stop sign here in Schwerin” – and tackle “the energy mess, the war cries, gender nonsense”.
“I felt very comfortable as a DJ but eventually I had enough, the failures of politicians went too far,” says Holm on the campaign trail, where he has fostered an outsider image. In reality he is a professional politician: first at municipal level and, after six years, as a Bundestag MP.
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A win on Sunday would be a triumphant homecoming. But even if he loses, Holm has already won by getting to the run-off stage for his party: the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
The more conservative wing – to which Holm belongs – has shrunk as a more far-right wing took over, attacking pandemic measures and adopting a radical law-and-order line
While Germany’s domestic intelligence monitors AfD leaders, fearing its long-term aims, Holm insists his party is pursuing “absolutely democratic politics ... We are a young party and entering a new phase in our second decade and we want to take on the work of governing.”
Founded a decade ago in protest at euro zone bailouts, the AfD has adapted and radicalised in the intervening years to become a catch-all party for the disaffected. The more conservative wing – to which Holm belongs – has shrunk as a more far-right wing took over, attacking pandemic measures and adopting a radical law-and-order line.
The party’s recent surge to nearly 20 per cent in nationwide polls, double its 2021 federal election result, is fuelled – according to poll respondents themselves – mostly by frustration with Germany’s established political parties rather than support for the AfD. After previous surges and slumps in support, opinion is now divided over whether this record AfD high is different.
[ Bickering among Berlin coalition partners leaves public unimpressed ]
Already Germany’s newest party is breathing down the neck of its oldest – chancellor Olaf Scholz and his ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Berlin. It is the largest party in its eastern stronghold of Saxony, with one in three support.
Further north in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern the AfD is now polling up to 25 per cent – up nearly nine points on its 2021 state election result.
In the first round of Schwerin’s mayoral elections, Leif-Erik Holm overtook more established parties to finish second on 27.4 per cent. His SPD rival Rico Badenscheier took 42 per cent.
Rattled, Germany’s more established parties are blaming – and attacking – each other for the AfD’s rise. A local Schwerin politician from the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) sparked outrage online by calling Sunday’s SPD-AfD runoff a “choice between cholera and the plague”.
With the AfD established in all 16 federal states, the party is working now to build support in local and municipal elections and, in recent weeks, almost placed candidates as county managers in two recent eastern elections.
A recent study listed dozens examples of local political co-operation between the AfD and the centre-right Christian Democratic Union, mostly – though not exclusively – in eastern Germany
The AfD’s growing reach is not restricted to politics either. Last month judges at Saxony’s highest administrative court dismissed a formal complaint against a colleague on the bench who rules on asylum cases, has links to the AfD and, in a far-right newspaper, attacked Angela Merkel’s “open border state doctrine”.
Far-right groups with AfD links are quietly putting forward their members as lay judges in the court system while the party chases support from soldiers, police, prison officers and other civil servants.
“It’s about hammering in the first pegs from below,” said Holm to Die Zeit weekly. “That’s where it has to begin.”
A decade on, the self-imposed cordon sanitaire of Germany’s established parties – banning co-operation with the AfD – is failing. A recent study listed dozens examples of local political co-operation between the AfD and the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), mostly – though not exclusively – in eastern Germany.
“It won’t be possible to keep the AfD out of office forever – they will get in,” says Prof Klaus Schubert, political scientist at the University of Münster. “But will they manage in this new reality or – more likely – show that they can shout but aren’t able to do practical politics? For many, that might be a sobering moment.”