{"id":26813,"date":"2025-01-26T06:40:17","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T06:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/?p=26813"},"modified":"2025-01-26T06:40:17","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T06:40:17","slug":"musk-addresses-anti-immigrant-german-partys-rally-ahead-of-key-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/2025\/01\/musk-addresses-anti-immigrant-german-partys-rally-ahead-of-key-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk addresses anti-immigrant German party&#8217;s rally ahead of key elections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>MONITORING (SW) &#8211; US tech billionaire Elon Musk gave a video address to a campaign rally of Germany&#8217;s anti-immigration AfD party Saturday, his latest show of support ahead of the country&#8217;s election next month.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"left\">\n<div class=\"story-area\">\n<div class=\"content-area\" data-io-article-url=\"https:\/\/www.geo.tv\/latest\/587342-elon-musk-addresses-german-far-right-rally-by-video-link\">\n<p>Musk told a gathering of thousands of AfD supporters in the eastern city of Halle that their party was &#8220;the best hope for the future of Germany&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Musk has raised concern from some mainstream leaders who have accused him of interfering in European politics with comments on his social platform X about politicians in countries including Germany and Britain, reported Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>He also drew criticism this week for making a public hand gesture that was seen by some as resembling a straight-armed Nazi salute.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The German people are really an ancient nation which goes back thousand of years,&#8221; he said in Saturday&#8217;s address.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I even read Julius Caesar was very impressed (by) the German tribes,&#8221; he said, urging the supporters to &#8220;fight, fight, fight&#8221; for their country&#8217;s future.<\/p>\n<p>He said the AfD wanted &#8220;more self-determination for Germany and for the countries in Europe and less from Brussels&#8221;, a reference to European Union authorities.<\/p>\n<p>Musk is a close associate of US President Donald Trump, who has appointed him to head a new department of &#8220;government efficiency&#8221; in his administration.<\/p>\n<p>Like Trump, the AfD opposes immigration, denies climate change, rails against gender politics and has declared war on a political establishment and mainstream media it condemns as censorious.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of Germany&#8217;s February 23 elections, it is polling at around 20%, a new record for a party that has already shattered a decades-old taboo against the far right in post-war Germany.<\/p>\n<p>The mainstream conservative grouping CDU\/CSU leads on about 30%.<\/p>\n<h6><em><strong>ENDS<\/strong><\/em><\/h6>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MONITORING (SW) &#8211; US tech billionaire Elon Musk gave a video address to a campaign rally of Germany&#8217;s anti-immigration AfD party Saturday, his latest show of support ahead of the country&#8217;s election next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":26814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[990,984,976,194,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-politics","category-world","category-headline"],"views":36,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26815,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26813\/revisions\/26815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}