Jörg Meuthen is the federal spokesman for the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany). In the following video Mr. Meuthen discusses the significance of last weekend’s state elections in Brandenburg and Saxony, in which the AfD made historic gains.
Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
| 00:10 | (Beginning this morning as guest, the AfD.) | |
| 00:14 | Let me say: it is obvious who the election winner is | |
| 00:18 | for these two elections: The Alternative for Germany. | |
| 00:22 | All other parties clearly lost voters, with the exception | |
| 00:26 | of the Green Party which had a slight increase, | |
| 00:30 | but remained massively behind their projected results. So they also don’t look too happy. | |
| 00:36 | (to come there we ask for understanding and) | |
| 00:40 | We are thus establishing ourselves as a People’s Party. | |
| 00:43 | I was already asked this morning on Deutschlandfunk whether we are | |
| 00:47 | perhaps a people’s protest party, I think it was Deutschlandfunk. No, we’re not a protest party. | |
| 00:51 | We have worked out a programme in all policy areas, and our objectives appear to voters as a | |
| 00:57 | credible and authentic proposal. The election results reflect that. | |
| 01:02 | (From the news channel Al Jazeera. Mr. Meuthen,) | |
| 01:06 | I said it repeatedly yesterday, and I will say it again here: | |
| 01:10 | Sometimes people speak of East Germany as being “Dark Germany” [Dunkeldeutschland]. | |
| 01:14 | In my opinion that East Germany is a light. They are quite bright there and | |
| 01:19 | are very much more sensitive with regard to history, | |
| 01:23 | and likewise the result has turned out to be positive. | |
| 01:26 | (more direct mandates won than lists) | |
| 01:31 | Being the European politician that I am, I compare this situation | |
| 01:35 | with Italy. As you know, the Lega was | |
| 01:39 | formerly the Lega Nord and now has spread to the whole of Italy. This is certainly the dominant | |
| 01:48 | people’s party there at the moment. That’s the direction | |
| 01:51 | we are moving, except in our case the change | |
| 01:54 | isn’t coming from the north, but from the east of the country. | |
| 01:58 | (15 years of right-wing extremism are meanwhile documented with them, yes) | |
| 02:02 | No, being the opposition is not necessarily horse dung, as Franz Müntefering once put it. | |
| 02:09 | The opposition can shape the direction of governing very strongly. | |
| 02:12 | We have experienced this quite often. For instance, | |
| 02:15 | we initiate some kind of law. The others copy it, but add a couple of changes or three sentences | |
| 02:19 | and then the laws pass. I’m also constantly asked, as I was yesterday, isn’t everything you do | |
| 02:23 | a waste of time because the AfD isn’t running the government? No, it isn’t a waste of time. | |
| 02:29 | We will be an even stronger opposition force facing a government | |
| 02:33 | made up alliances that are even more fragile. | |
| 02:37 | That’s what it looks like, but it isn’t very clear if they even succeeded at all. | |
| 02:40 | In one case it is definitely not clear yet. | |
| 02:43 | It could result in a three-party coalition, which aren’t usually very stable. | |
| 02:49 | So we will be this powerful opposition confronting a very fragile coalition government. | |
| 02:54 | It is possible that these alliances won’t last. We’ll have to wait and see. | |
| 02:57 | We cannot anticipate this now. | |
| 03:00 | All in all, we are looking forward to extremely good parliamentary work | |
| 03:04 | in both federal states. Thank you very much. |
They move too slow.The power is not enough.There is no time left.
No time left …not enough power , Merkel propaganda, laying media , regime, doing good job ..
Keep an eye on the so-called Green Party. They call themselves Green but they are closet communists. One of the founders of the German Green Party was the infamous Herbert Marcuse, one of the original Frankfurt School participants.