How Germany is grappling with far-right gains and rising transport costs

[chimes] It has been a very busy start to autumn in Germany, especially when it comes to politics.

We had three state elections and some district votes in September.

In the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD or AfD, achieved an historic victory.

It won nearly 44% of the vote and 39 seats, falling just three seats short of an outright majority and well ahead of the center-right CDU, which got 17.2%.

Now, around a month after these results, the parliament in Saxony-Anhalt is sitting for the first time.

There's still not a government in place, negotiations are ongoing, but the AfD is trying to stay- take steps forward.

If they get into power, it would be the first far-right state government in Germany since the Nazi era.

Paul, what's the latest?

Yeah, so as we speak today, on Tuesday, uh, Saxony-Anhalt's new parliament is holding its first meeting, and it's expected to elect its new parliamentary president.

This would be an AfD member named Tobias Rausch.

Uh, if elected, he'd be the first AfD president of a state parliament in Germany, and this would be a significant step toward the far-right party forming a state government there.

So Paul, I think some listeners are probably wondering, who is this Tobias Rausch? So far, we've mainly heard about Ulrich Siegmund, the, the lead candidate of the AfD in, in that region.

Right.

So Siegmund got more of the news.

He was the AfD's top candidate, uh, in the last election, and he's aiming to become the state's minister president or state premier.

But today we're seeing the election of the president of parliament or the speaker of the house, and for this role, the AfD has put forward Tobias Rausch.

So in this role, Rausch would lead parliamentary meetings.

This position is formally a nonpartisan role.

Uh, it's required to be exercised neutrally, so theoretically he'd be limited to some extent in his powers here.

Uh, but he would have significant administrative power and influence over the happenings in parliament, and he would also be the second highest ranking state official after the minister president.

So the AfD is aiming to lead a minority government then with Siegmund as state premier, presumably.

Right.

And it's looking like we can expect that election for the state premier role to come in December.

So an interesting aspect to all of this is the role of another party, the BSW, which is this kind of fringe party that's often described as being left wing in its economic policies, but it's kind of similar to the AfD in being anti-immigration.

So the BSW only barely made it into the Saxony-Anhalt parliament.