After election, Schweitzer warns of growing loss of trust in politics

Alexander Schweitzer has described the AfD’s election success in Saxony-Anhalt as fatal, warning that democratic parties must confront a deepening loss of trust in politics.

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Democratic parties must not leave this loss of trust to the AfD.

Schweitzer, the acting SPD state leader in Rhineland-Palatinate and a former state premier, said people felt politics no longer offered convincing answers to their everyday problems. “Democratic parties must not leave this loss of trust to the AfD,” he said, arguing that the issue required an answer not only in Saxony-Anhalt but across Germany.

He said the AfD had reached a new dimension in a German state parliament, with projections putting its support at about 44 percent. The party is classified by Germany’s domestic intelligence service as definitively right-wing extremist. “For Germany, this is a turning point,” Schweitzer said.

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For Germany, this is a turning point.

Katrin Eder, the Greens’ leader in the state parliament, called the result “shocking” and “a disastrous signal” for all democratic parties. She said politicians needed to stop making the situation look better than it was and focus on rebuilding confidence in the democratic system.

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A disastrous signal

Eder also renewed her call to examine a possible procedure to ban the AfD. She said all available options should first be reviewed carefully, pointing to Germany’s history and the election of the Nazi Party in 1933. A party ban, she said, was “democracy’s sharpest weapon” and therefore required careful consideration, alongside closer cooperation among democratic parties.

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Democracy’s sharpest weapon