AfD in Hesse: Stronger in polls, but weak in organizational structure

As the AfD grows stronger, the question in Germany in the future will also be how majorities can be formed in the democratic center without the party. There are currently no elections in Hesse, but how is the AfD positioned here? According to Giessen political scientist Dorothée de Nève, the party is currently polling at 20 to 22 percent. However, this success belies weaknesses.

Where does the AfD stand politically?

The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified the party as a suspected right-wing extremist case in 2022 and began monitoring it. The AfD defended itself against this legally, but without success. Both the administrative court in Wiesbaden and the administrative court in Kassel decided that the Hessian AfD could be classified as a suspected right-wing extremist case and could be monitored.

How strong is the AfD in Hesse?

In the 2023 state elections, the AfD increased its share of the vote from 13.1 to 18.4 percent and became the second strongest force. In the local elections in March, it more than doubled its national vote share from 6.8 to 14.8. When the dual leadership Andreas Lichert and Robert Lambrou were re-elected at a party conference in November last year, Lambrou said, with a view to the so-called firewall, that the majority in the country wanted a “center-right” government. The chairman of the strongest political force in the country, CDU Prime Minister Boris Rhein, categorically ruled this out several times at the state and local level.

“This success belies the weakness of the party in its organizational structure and in local politics,” says de Nève. In Hesse, the AfD only has around an eighth of the SPD members and a sixth of the CDU members. “This weakness of the AfD recently led to the party only being on the ballot in one in five municipalities in Hesse in the local elections. Even in communities where the party was very successful in the state or federal elections, it was not able to nominate its own candidates. According to its own information, the AfD has around 5,000 members in the country.

What does the AfD want in Hesse?

The AfD presents its goals in the guidelines published on its homepage. There it demands, among other things, a lowering of the hurdles for referendums, Hesse-wide, suspicion-free controls to combat foreign crime or the consistent deportation of all people who are obliged to leave the country. Further: “We fundamentally reject the Islamic religious instruction introduced by the Hessian state government.” In addition, the party does not want to continue to allow “our German language to be violated by gender-neutral word inventions or word additions”. Likewise, there is no reason for “climate change alarmism”.

How does the AfD work as the strongest opposition force in the state parliament?

The desire to appoint a state parliament vice-president has failed several times in the current legislative period. The AfD initiated a committee of inquiry into Corona policy. Of the original 43 questions, eleven remain after a legal dispute. According to the party, the parliamentary group submitted 619 small questions on various topics.

“The AfD makes intensive use of the classic instruments of an opposition party in the state parliament. “Small requests in particular are an established instrument of the opposition to control the government,” says de Nève. Inflationary use tends to be counterproductive. Public perception is decreasing and the AfD is not even able to make political reference to the numerous answers in its political work. "At the same time, the accumulation of small inquiries is also problematic in that it throws sand into the administration's gears and unnecessarily ties up resources without resulting in anything in terms of content."