David Begrich: “The normalization of far-right political offerings”

David Begrich said he woke after the election “from restless dreams,” surprised that the AfD had won 44% in Saxony-Anhalt rather than the 42% many expected.

In an interview with Die Zeit, the sociologist said AfD leader Ulrich Siegmund had succeeded in bringing to the ballot people who had not voted for a long time. For many of them, politics had otherwise remained distant background noise in everyday life.

Begrich argued that the AfD understood this electorate well before the campaign began. This time, he said, the party had perfected a formula built on reducing complexity, projecting accessibility and presenting itself as rooted in local social spaces.

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from restless dreams

He also criticized the performance of polling institutes in the state. While polls normally carry a margin of error of two or three percentage points, he said none had predicted that the CDU would fall below 20%, or that the AfD could rise well above 40%.

The result reinforced his view that Saxony-Anhalt has entered an exceptional period of electoral volatility. “The electorate is enormously difficult to assess,” Begrich said.

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The electorate is enormously difficult to assess.