BERLIN: Far-right and far-left parties in the German parliament on Tuesday failed to show up for a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was in Berlin to plead for more support.
The far-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) was completely absent from the event, while the leaders of the far-right AfD said in a statement that “we refuse to listen to a speaker wearing camouflage fatigues.”
“Ukraine does not need a war president now, it needs a peace president who is willing to negotiate so that the dying stops and the country has a future,” the AfD said.
The coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been a staunch backer of Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022 and has supplied Kyiv with a wide range of weapons.
But public opinion remains split over the approach. Some Germans fear the backing could risk dragging Germany into war, while others resent the amount of money being spent on Ukraine.
The AfD has long been highly critical of Germany’s stance on the war, calling for “peace negotiations” and criticizing Berlin’s delivery of weapons to Kyiv.
The far-right party scored around 16 percent of the vote in Sunday’s EU elections in Germany, finishing in second place behind only the main opposition conservatives, according to preliminary results.
Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) scored their worst result ever, coming in third at 14 percent.
The far-left BSW alliance, a new party that campaigned to halt weapons deliveries to Ukraine from the West, garnered a stunning six percent.
Katja Mast, a lawmaker for Scholz’s SPD, called the BSW boycott “embarrassing and disrespectful” in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Far-right, far-left MPs boycott Zelensky German parliament speech
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Far-right, far-left MPs boycott Zelensky German parliament speech
- The far-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) was completely absent from the event
- The leaders of the far-right AfD said in a statement that “we refuse to listen to a speaker wearing camouflage fatigues“
