German Federal elections are just around the corner
on Sunday, September 24th and we’ve started a little campaign to target non-voters! Germany-wide, non-voters make up the second largest group of eligible voters and in Berlin, they are the largest group overall. #WählenGegenRechts motivates people to use their vote against the right, to block the AfD and NDP from gaining more political power in the Bundestag Everyone was “surprised” and shocked when Trump was elected last year. Before that, Brexit was a similar shock, and the French elections were a hard race against the Front National. We just saw this last March how high voter turn-out of 82% in the Netherlands kept right wing fascists calling themselves populists from winning control of the Parliament. Germany is now at a similar turning point. Non-voters are a strong political group in Germany. In the Bundestag elections of 2013, 28.5% of eligible voters did not vote. This voting block has immense potential and hold power – we want them to use it.
#WählenGegenRechts calls on all former non-voters to put their right to vote to use against the AfD!
Many non-voters don’t participate because they think it won’t change anything anyway. This is not true. In the local elections in 2016 in Berlin, the AfD won several electoral districts by a very slim margin of only a handful of votes. It’s time for action. Higher voter participation means that it will be harder for the AfD to make the 5% threshold to gain a seat in the Bundestag. Use your vote as active resistance against a national political shift to the right, against the AfD’s rise to power, against the normalisation of the far-right in our society. Use your vote – also for those who are not allowed to vote.
