Mainstream strategy against AfD: Ignore and defame

The AfD now seems to be in the midst of the defamation phase after being ignored for a long time. The politician most affected, is the deputy Mariana Harder-Kühnel, the candidate of the largest opposition party for the office of Bundestag Vice President.

In the newly-elected Bavarian state parliament, the AfD candidate – a deserving police director – was also refused her a seat at the presidium.

The “old parties”, as AfD parliamentarians often call them – to set themselves apart from the policies of the Union, SPD, FDP, Greens and Left Party – have shown a complete disregard for the current parliamentary reality.

“Each faction of the German Bundestag is represented by at least one vice-president or a vice-president in the presidium”, the AfD noted. But the majority in the Union, the SPD and the small opposition parties ignore the parliamentary reality, representing their old view of making participation rights dependent on political “good behavior”.

The notion is all the more absurd as there are zero reservations on the parliamentary record against the renowned lawyer.

This political narrow-mindedness in escalating the dispute over the interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, is a waste of time many AfD lawmakers argue, because it takes the focus off serious issues.

Worrying figures on the nature of employment, available from the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland, an editorial network, were revealed after a request by the AFD parliamentary group to the Ministry of Labour.

According to these, at the end of March 2018, 47 percent of “refugees” registered by the social security system, were employed as assistants, 42 percent in a “professionally oriented activity”, three percent as “specialists” and seven percent as “experts” (whatever may be hidden in the term).

Plans are to be launched by the Cabinet next week, with the leading German industry associations demanding emphatically that “Germany must continue to be an open society ready to recruit foreign professionals” even though very few migrants are well-educated.

Ingo Kramer, the head of the German Employers’ Federation (BDA) has meanwhile claimed that Chancellor Merkel’s “integration” policies have been a great success.

But German workers will be interested to hear that they are being challenged by cheap labour from outside Europe.

In an interview with the Augsburger Allgemeine about deportation, Kramer noted: “That can not happen. The most important thing is that employers, together with their affected trainees and socially integrated employees, must go to the immigration office in good time and apply for a residence permit,” said Kramer.

Alexander Gauland, leader of the populist AfD, responded by saying that Kramer is “living on another planet”.

Gauland said German citizens are confronted on a daily basis “with the consequences of the irresponsible policy of open borders: growing housing shortages, rising rents and a never-ending series of terrible assaults”.

Employment experts have shown even more caution, as some 600 000 foreigners are currently recipients of social security payments.