Republicans (Germany)

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The Republicans (German: Die Republikaner, REP) is a right-wing populist political party in Germany. The primary plank of the REP's program is anti-immigration, and the party tends to attack protest voters. It was founded in 1983 by former Christian Social Union members Franz Handlos and Eckhard Voigt. Former Waffen-SS sergeant and television talk show host Franz Schönhuber was at one time the party's leader. It is currently led by medical doctor Rolf Schlierer. In the 1980s the Republicans had several seats in the European Parliament as well as in the parliament of the German state Baden-Württemberg. In Baden-Württemberg, the party has had seats until 2001. Currently they only attract between 1 and 2 percent of the vote in Bavaria, and approximately 3.5 percent in Baden-Württemberg, thus failing to reach the 5 percent necessary to win seats in the parliaments. The more successful (and more extremist) far-right parties National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) and German People's Union (DVU) have offered the Republicans a chance to join their electoral alliance, but the REP leaders refused any cooperation with "Anti-Basic Law" parties. However, a local leader of the REP sabotaged her own party's registration for the Saxony state elections, to the benefit of the NPD. After that election the REP began a period of harsh in-fighting over the question of whether or not to join forces with the NPD.

In the 2005 federal elections, the REP received 0.6 percent of the total votes cast nationally. Its strongest showing was in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg. In each of these states, the Republicans received 1.1 percent of the vote. [1]

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Related works

Hans-George Betz: Politics of Resentment: Right-Wing Radicalism in West Germany. In: Comparative Politics. Vol. 23, No. 1. (October, 1990) pp. 45-60. Betz argues that parties like the Republikaner appeal to the "bottom third" of the "Zweidrittelgesellschaft" (2/3s society), mixing intellectual nationalism with lower-class populism. JSTOR Link
Hans-George Betz: The New Politics of Resentment: Radical Ring-Wing Populist Parties in Western Europe. In: Comparative Politics. Vol. 25, No. 4. (July, 1993) pp. 413-427. Here, Betz explores the ways that radical anti-system parties have attracted both xenophobic populists and libertarian entrepreneurs, in an alliance against the welfare state. JSTOR Link

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