Posted on 04/19/2017 6:26:00 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
Frauke Petry, leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), said on Wednesday she would not lead the anti-immigration party's campaign ahead of a Sept. 24 federal election.
"In order to put an end to all speculation in this regard, I am using the opportunity of this video message to clearly state that I am neither available for a lone lead candidacy nor for participation in a top team," she said on Facebook.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
So who’s going to be the party’s leader?
Karl Dönitz
Jorg Meuthen is usually regarded as the number two. He’s fairly smart and capable of debates. Some in the AfD movement (probably one-third of the membership)...don’t think he’s right-wing enough for them. Beatrix von Storch is also a name you might see (she’s representing the party at the EU since they have a couple of seats). Bjoern Hoecke is a name you might occasionally see...he’s about as far as you can get before you come to the Brown Shirt era (about half the party wants him thrown out).
Presently, I’d say that AfD has run out of steam and by September, they will be lucky to get 8-percent nationally. They have three essential problems: (1) a one-topic political party (immigration), (2) most Germans voting for them are simply sending a frustration message to both the CDU and SPD, and (3) marginal candidates as you go state-by-state in regional elections.
Last summer, Germans were talking about them getting up near 16-percent in the national election, and maybe in a couple of state elections...near 20-percent.
About every quarter, they lose another point on the polls. There’s no doubt that they will get seats in the Bundestag. At that point, you will have two parties that no one can build a coalition around for forming a gov’t (the second party is the Linke Party).
Right now, it’s possible that Merkel and her CDU might actually get near 40-percent of the vote in the fall. Even the CSU down in Bavaria is pulling out it’s ace (Guttenberg) to campaign in a couple districts of Bavaria.
Sounds like it’s Merkel again or even worse Schulz. Amazing!
Look, Merkel said four years ago that she’d be retiring. Last year, they evaluated everything and concluded that none of the top three possible CDU candidates could win (Maiziere or Schauble could win but both insist upon retiring at the end of 2017). The CSU has no one that can stand up nationally as a candidate (Guttenberg would have been the guy in 2013 to lead but that scandal led him to leave politics). The next three or four possibilities are four years away or too young for the job.
So you turn to the SPD. Schulz was supposed to recharge the membership of the party and bring in a pro-EU slant. Well...about a quarter of the SPD voters have problem with immigration (something that Schulz can’t chat much about). In Feb, Schulz was one or two points ahead of Merkel....now falling, and maybe two points behind. I’d give Schulz a shot of getting 28-percent in the vote but that won’t be enough to win.
Beyond that...none of the remaining four national parties have anyone with skills, charisma, or charm. This is mostly about an election which centers on crime, pension reform, stable economy, immigration, and what to do about the EU.
I would think crime there is closely connected to immigration, so is immigration the #1 issue? And if so why would Germans want pro immigrant fools like Merkel and Schulz?
Crime started a trend going back to 1991 (when the Wall went down). States in Germany started a trend to cut back on cops (for every ten retiring...you hire nine, each year). Home break-in rates were already going up five to seven years ago, before the immigration thing took off.
What is true is that a lot of the young-guy immigrants discovered that the only jobs for them were low-paying burger-flipper jobs. If you had degrees or craftsman skills....fine, you got hired. But I would guess that fifty-percent of the crowd is now attracted toward drug sales (really hyped up in urban cities now). If we were in Koln or Berlin and you wanted some LSD or Heroin....I could lead you up to the city parks where you can buy....no fear of the cops doing much of anything.
This whole immigration thing has a hundred things tied to it....some negative and some positive. Birth-rate is killing off the population (will go from 82-million to 70-million in roughly 20 years). There are some rural communities in thirty to forty years which won’t exist anymore. It’s just that they needed a door, and some control of who enters....not just a wide gate and hundreds just walking in each week with no clear idea who they are.
“It’s just that they needed a door, and some control of who enters....not just a wide gate and hundreds just walking in each week with no clear idea who they are.”
Exactly, and the main thing to screen for should be cultural values, let people in that already have western values, that don’t need assimilation. But from what I read Merkel is still leaving the door wide open and unattended.
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