Regions with high AfD vote shares would suffer particularly severe economic damage under an AfD-led federal government, according to a report by Spiegel. The policies of the party, parts of which are classified as right-wing extremist, would hit people in Saxony-Anhalt especially hard, the magazine reported Thursday, citing a study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin.
Under the policies demanded by the AfD, people in Saxony-Anhalt would "on average lose around €1,600 per capita in income annually," DIW President Marcel Fratzscher writes, according to the report. "In addition, around 10,000 jobs could be lost."
Fratzscher examined what consequences it would have nationwide if the AfD actually implemented its election manifesto, including withdrawal from the EU and the euro. According to Spiegel, the economist's calculations are not a precise forecast but a scenario based on figures drawn from scientific studies.
An AfD government policy would trigger "national shocks," Fratzscher writes: "A course against Europe and the euro, isolation and border closures, the dismantling of state institutions, investment and public services, as well as increasing polarization, make the situation measurably worse for most people."
Particularly vulnerable would be regions with a small-scale economic structure and a high share of lower-skilled workers, precisely the areas where the right-wing populists are most successful. Saxony-Anhalt is one such region, where the AfD is clearly leading in polls ahead of the state election on September 6.
Over a five-year period, according to the assumptions in Fratzscher's scenario, nationwide economic growth would decline by around six percentage points under an AfD-led federal government, inflation would rise by just over five percentage points, and unemployment would increase by two percentage points.
The decisive factors behind this would be the AfD's demands for a freeze on immigration and for state spending cuts. The party's additional demand to leave the euro and the EU, however, could not be implemented by an AfD government without significant obstacles.
According to the DIW's calculations, income losses for people in Saxony-Anhalt would be twice as high as the national average. The greatest income losses, up to eight percent, threaten the Saxony-Anhalt districts with the highest AfD vote shares: Burgenlandkreis, Mansfeld-Südharz, and Salzlandkreis. Fratzscher believes this will barely hurt the party at all: "Dissatisfaction fuels AfD support, but AfD policy further intensifies the problems and leads into a downward spiral."
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