RESOLVING THE LEDGER
This is one outlet's own report from The Straits Times — the article as it was filed. Other outlets are covering the same event; open the full story to compare every source side by side.
See the full story · 1 sourcesAfD politician Ulrich Siegmund (centre right) takes selfies with supporters at a campaign event on July 21.
Ulrich Siegmund, a popular AfD figure, could become Germany's first far-right state premier, as the AfD leads with over 40% in Saxony-Anhalt polls, threatening traditional parties. The AfD promotes radical policies including mass deportations, scaling down public broadcasting, favouring Russian gas, and overturning Germany's current political and social order. The party's rise exploits eastern Germany's economic and political frustrations, raising fears of authoritarianism, economic harm, and social division among the people. AI generated
JERICHOW, Germany – On a warm afternoon in the small east German town of Jerichow, Ulrich Siegmund looked less like a political firebrand and more like a polite neighbour.
Slender, with neatly parted hair, and wearing an approachable smile, the 35-year-old moved easily across the central square.
He shook every hand and patted dozens of backs. He asked about family, remembered names and patiently posed for smartphone wefies with anyone who asked.
Yet, behind this staged picture of rural normalcy lies a profound political earthquake.
Siegmund could soon become the first far-right state premier in post-World War II German history.
In the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, elections are scheduled for Sept 6 – and the AfD is polling at over 40 per cent.
Under favourable circumstances, even slightly more than 40 per cent could be enough for the party to secure an absolute majority of seats in the regional Parliament.
It would allow the AfD to govern alone – without Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Social Democrats or any other traditional party that has governed Germany since 1949.
Siegmund’s primary rival is Sven Schulze, the current prime minister of Saxony-Anhalt and leader of the state’s CDU. However, in the opinion polls, the CDU garners only between 22 and 24 per cent.
Eighty-one years after the fall of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in 1945, a party whose Saxony-Anhalt state organisation is classified by the state’s domestic intelligence service as a confirmed right-wing extremist organisation stands on the precipice of real state power.
Siegmund’s speech that afternoon in Jerichow lasted barely five minutes. But the audience were not there for policy details. They were there to rub shoulders with him. He merely repeated well-worn populist tropes.
He claims that free speech no longer exists in Germany, demands the abolition of public broadcasting accused of ideological and political bias, calls for mass deportations of immigrants and condemns German aid to Ukraine.
Siegmund has cultivated the image of a political pop star. In July, he led a roaring convoy of 400 vintage East German Simson mopeds through the countryside, invoking nostalgia for a vanished socialist state. When Der Spiegel, Germany’s leading news magazine, put his face on its cover with the headline, The Most Dangerous Man In Germany, Siegmund did not hide.
He autographed copies of the magazine on camera and broadcast the video on Instagram as a badge of honour.
Gone are the days when voting for the AfD was a source of shame. Today, people openly flaunt it.
However, beneath the polished social media presence lies an apparatus deeply rooted in radical networks. Investigative reports reveal that Siegmund’s parliamentary staff includes former leaders of the Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend, a neo-nazi youth organisation banned by the German government in 2009.
Key strategic positions in a potential AfD administration – including the chief of the state chancery and senior justice officials – have been discussed for candidates with ties to banned right-wing groups.
Siegmund’s campaign operation also has links to activists and entrepreneurs from the Identitarian milieu. The Identitarian movement is a far-right European network that promotes the idea that white, European cultures are under threat from mass immigration and globalisation.
Ronald Glaser, a prominent AfD lawmaker in Berlin, leaves little doubt about the party’s radical ambitions.
“A mildew has hung over Germany, essentially since the days of Helmut Kohl,” he said in an interview with The Straits Times, referring to the chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998.
The late Kohl was also former chancellor Angela Merkel’s mentor.
“Nothing has changed for the better, everything just kept getting worse”, Glaser, 52, said.
“There are far too many checks and balances in Germany that produce a reform backlog. Now a new party needs to step in and push things through. ”
The AfD’s priorities reflect a fundamental overhaul of German domestic and foreign policy: ending subsidies for renewable energy in favour of nuclear power; reducing public broadcasting to a drastically scaled-down, tax-funded Grundfunk – or basic – broadcasting; arguing that Germany has already fulfilled its humanitarian obligation to Ukraine by taking in refugees, and restoring cheap Russian gas imports.
“Countries have interests, not friends,” Glaser argued. “We want to do business with the Russians because they have cheap gas and are an important, powerful neighbour.”
He does not deny Russia’s responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine. “Of course the invasion was wrong,” he said. “But if we’re going to talk about it, then we also have to talk about the whole history leading up to it.”
He was echoing the Russian narrative that the country was encircled by NATO and had no other choice but to invade Ukraine.
On immigration, the AfD’s stance is uncompromising. Glaser , who was a staff writer for the right-wing weekly Junge Freiheit, called for a “wave of deportations”.
Siegmund himself openly uses the term “remigration”, which is a far-right political concept that advocates for the forced removal of migrants and, in some formulations, even citizens with a migration background.
To understand why this message resonates so...
AIPROPX is an independent multi-source news index — we track, compare, and connect coverage from across the web into one place you won't find anywhere else.