Majority of German voters consider AfD a right-wing extremist party

More than half of German eligible voters consider the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party right-wing extremist, according to a survey conducted by the opinion research institute YouGov on behalf of dpa.

According to the poll, 57% consider the term "extreme right-wing" to be a suitable description of the AfD. Another 19% of voters consider the AfD a conservative party.

A further 9% of respondents said they would categorize the AfD as a centrist party, while 8% found none of these descriptions suitable and 7% had no answer to the question.

Germany's intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, classified the AfD as a suspected right-wing extremist party in March 2021.

The classification as a suspected case was confirmed by the Cologne Administrative Court in March 2022. The AfD has appealed against the decision. The proceedings before the Higher Administrative Court in Münster have not yet been concluded.

The AfD has traditionally been on the fringes of German politics. Recently, however, an intense political debate has sprung up in Germany about the rise of the far-right.

In nationwide voter polls in June, the AfD reached a new all-time high with ratings surging to 20%, ranked second behind the conservative CDU/CSU.

The party won its first vote for district administrator in the state of Thuringia in June, when Robert Sesselmann was elected in Sonneberg. He is the first AfD candidate to win a government post.

One week after Sesselmann's election, an AfD candidate was elected mayor in the small town of Raguhn-Jeßnitz in the neighbouring state of Saxony-Anhalt.

According to the results of the YouGov survey, older people, people with a higher level of education and people who live in western Germany tend to rate the AfD as far-right.

Among those who see the AfD as a conservative party are more men than women. Of the respondents who said they voted for the AfD in the 2021 federal election, most chose the label "conservative."

According to the YouGov survey, 46% of voters believe they know very much or quite a lot about the AfD's political goals. About the same number of Germans think they know nothing or little about the party's goals.