German Green party sees rising members amid anti-right-wing protests
Germany's Green party has announced that they have gained more than 4,500 new members since the beginning of the year, their best month for gaining new members in three years.
Party leadership said there was a connection between the relatively high number of new members and the protests against right-wing extremism and in favour of the protection of democracy that have been going on for weeks.
"Once again this weekend, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Germany to send a signal against right-wing extremism and in favour of our democracy," said the party's political director, Emily Büning, to dpa.
"Since the beginning of January alone, over 4,500 people have decided to become members of the Greens - that is the second strongest monthly growth our party has ever seen," said Büning.
According to the party, only once since the Greens were founded in 1980 has there been an even larger wave of new members, in 2021 in the run-up to that year's Bundestag elections.
The nationwide wave of protests was triggered by an investigation by the media outlet Correctiv into a meeting between radical right-wingers and politicians from the Alternative for Germany (AfD), centre-right Christian Democrats and far-right Werteunion in Potsdam in November 2023.
The former head of the far-right, white supremacist Identitarian movement in Austria, Martin Sellner, said that he had spoken about expelling foreign nationals from Germany, including asylum seekers and immigrants with German passports, by force if necessary.
Studies on voter migration in recent years have shown that the Greens are losing fewer supporters to the AfD than other parties have been. In recent nationwide polls, between 13% and 14% of Germans supported the Greens.
