Weidel shocks German public opinion
Alice Weidel was recently elected chancellor candidate for the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Now she is about to establish herself as Germany’s most popular politician.
Chart 1: The support in % of voters who answered the question: Which candidate would you vote for in a direct election for the post of head of government? Source: INSA
2025-02-02
Ahead of the German parliamentary elections that will take place on February 23, a poll was recently presented in the newspaper BILD conducted by the survey institute INSA. In the survey, the question was asked: Which candidate would you vote for in a direct election for the post of head of government?
The answer a shock
The answer came as a shock to many in the German establishment when it showed that Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) candidate Alice Weidel came in first place. Weidel, who is now group leader of the AfD in the German parliament and recently appointed as the party’s candidate for chancellor, is therefore, according to the survey, the politician most Germans want to see as the country’s next head of government.
AfD and the criticism of Euro-cooperation
The AfD was formed ahead of the 2013 German parliamentary election, mainly by former members of the major liberal conservative CDU party. The first question on the party program was then a strong criticism of the Euro as a common currency. The AfD considered it a big mistake that Germany abandoned its own currency, the Deutsch Mark, and introduced the Euro. According to the program, the party would work for a dissolution of the entire Euro project and a return in Europe to national currencies. At this time, the Euro was going through a crisis with major problems in Greece in particular, a country then close to state bankruptcy. In recent years, the party’s rhetoric has instead come to focus on criticism of German immigration policy.
AfD largest in eastern Germany
Thirty years after the fall of the wall, there are still many visible differences between the old West and the old East. One such difference is voter’s choice in elections to the political assemblies. The AfD has limited support in western Germany, but is often the largest party in the eastern states. In the autumn of 2024, the party celebrated great success in the state elections in Thuringia and Saxony with around thirty percent of the vote. In national opinion polls before the elections in February, the party gathers support around twenty percent of the votes and is thus the second largest party after the Christian Democratic CDU.
Alice Weidel an odd figure
Alice Weidel has a doctorate in economics and has a background in the financial sector before she became a full-time politician. She joined the AfD precisely because of its criticism of the Euro and the current regulations within the Euro-cooperation. Like the party, she too has increasingly turned to debating immigration and immigrant-related crime. Alice Weidel breaks the pattern of how a person should be in a conservative party with a nationalist program. She is openly homosexual and lives in a relationship and registered partnership with a woman from Switzerland, origins from Sri Lanka. They have two adopted children. Weidel thus becomes difficult to attack with accusations of racism and homophobia, accusations that are often directed at the AfD in particular. Weidel counters accusations of populism by saying she only represents common sense, unlike the other politicians who she believes are ideologically blinded when it comes to immigration and the green transition.
Grand coalition between CDU and SPD most likely
Alice Weidel will of course not become head of government, at least not in this election, because all other parties completely reject any form of cooperation with the AfD. It seems more and more likely that Germany will return to a grand coalition between the Christian Democratic CDU and the Social Democratic SPD. That was mostly the case during Angela Merkel’s 16 years in power. This time it will be with Friedrich Merz of the CDU as chancellor. It appears to be the only possible form of government, if the AfD is to be kept away from the innermost corridors of power. In the long runm however, it will be difficult, not to say impossible for the CDU to resist co-operation with the AfD since the two parties have so many policies aligning. With the AfD, CDU can push much more through the legislative bodies.