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A new poll has fuelled growing fears that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party could be on the cusp of winning power.
The findings show billionaire X social media platform owner Elon Musk has helped catapult AfD into second place with their leader Alice Weidel the favourite to become the country’s new chancellor.
The survey results have been described as “utterly terrifying” by Labour MP Blair McDougall who sits on the Commons foreign affairs select committee, who has branded Musk “the most irresponsible man on Earth.”
The poll comes just days after the world commemorated the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, and marked Hitler’s genocide of 6 million Jews.
Last weekend Musk addressed an AfD rally in Halle, east Germany, telling party members that Germans should move beyond guilt – adding, in an apparent reference to the crimes of the Nazis: “Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents.”
Days earlier he faced global condemnation for an apparent far-right salute at one of Donald Trump’s inauguration celebrations, though he has denied accusations it was a Nazi gesture.
According to the findings from the Washington DC Democracy Institute, which conducts polls in the US and around the world, the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) are on 27 per cent, only two points ahead of AfD on 25 per cent.
Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) are a distant third on 15 per cent, with the Greens just behind on 13 per cent.
However, AfD’s far-right leader Weidel is the clear choice of Germans to be chancellor on 35 per cent, well ahead of the CDU’s Friedrich Merz on 26 per cent. Scholz lags behind on 15 per cent.
The findings are even more problematic given that this week Merz broke an 80-year convention of not working with the far right and siding with them in votes on migration.
The German elections were originally scheduled for 28 September but are now due to take place on 23 February after the collapse of the Scholz government.
The polling reveals that more Germans disapprove of Musk’s interventions than approve by 41 per cent to 36 per cent. However, it also shows he has had an impact, with 28 per cent saying they are “more likely” to vote AfD because of Musk compared to 23 per cent “less likely”.
Mr McDougall, who first came to prominence in the Scottish independence referendum, said he was horrified by the findings which have been reflected in other recent polls from Germany.
He said: “Last week we commemorated the 80th anniversary of the ending of the Holocaust and this week we see this. It’s sickening and deeply worrying.
“Powered by the richest and most irresponsible man on Earth, Germany, of all places, is turning towards the far right. Leaders in all democracies need to wake up to the existential threat to our freedoms and way of life.”
Musk has also thrown his weight behind British far-right activist Tommy Robinson and had talks with Reform UK, as well as being pivotal in Trump winning the presidential election.
Democracy Institute director Patrick Basham said that a new phenomenon is emerging in Germany: “The shy Musk voter.” He likened it to Brexit in the UK and Trump in 2016 where voters did not want to admit publicly how they are voting.
He added: “What folks say in public isn’t exactly what they think in private.”
While the Democracy Institute is based in America, it uses British Polling Council standards for its surveys and has previously been one of the first to pick up trends in changes of voting. In 2016 it correctly predicted Trump would win in the UK and in 2022 picked up Black and Latino voters switching from the Democrats to Republicans.
In Europe it was one of the few polling companies to predict the Brexit referendum result and also picked up on the rise of right-wing French leader Marine Le Pen.
