Germany’s Far-Right AfD Targets Victory Next Time After Breakthrough

Alice Weidel speaks on stage during an Alternative for Germany (AfD) election night rally in Berlin, Germany, on Feb. 23.Photographer: Soeren Stache/AFP/Getty Images
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The far-right Alternative for Germany vaulted into second place on Sunday after about a fifth of voters cast their ballot for a party that’s called for a halt to migration and assailed the country’s political establishment.

The AfD, which was founded in 2013 as an anti-euro protest party and swept into Germany’s parliament in 2017 amid public outrage over a surge of asylum seekers, nearly doubled its support since 2021 to 20.2%, according to projections tallied by broadcaster ARD. That puts it ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, which slumped to 16.2%.