BERLIN (AP) — The far-right Alternative for Germany party on Saturday presented its candidate for chancellor in the country’s upcoming election.
In practice, Alice Weidel has no chance of taking the chancellery as other parties refuse to work with the populist party.
But Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which was founded in 2013, has been getting strong approval rates and is currently the second strongest party in the country after the center-right Christian Democrats. It is polling between 18% and 19% in nationwide surveys.
This is the first time that the AfD has nominated its own candidate for chancellor.
“We want to bring Germany forward again. We want to be at the top again worldwide," Weidel said as she accepted the nomination.
said she would put the on track again, turn back the Germany's and cut down harshly on immigration.
The party's fierce anti-immigration stance and revelations about other German far-right movements' plans to deport millions of immigrants and their descendants if they come to power in Germany led to
At the same time, it helped the AfD , in Thuringia in September.
Weidel called irregular migration to Germany “the source of all evil" on Saturday.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Scholz, who is currently leading the country with a minority government, plans to in parliament on Dec. 16. He is expected to lose, paving the way for an election on Feb. 23.
Deep discontent with Scholz's government — which was notorious for infighting, inflation and a weak economy — as well as and skepticism toward German are among the factors that contributed to support for the AfD.
AfD is at its strongest in the east, and the domestic has the party’s branches in both Saxony and Thuringia under official surveillance as “proven right-wing extremist†groups.
The other candidates expected to run for the chancellery are for the center-left Social Democrats, , and .
