ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - One of the 11 Kurdish candidates running in the German parliamentary election highlighted the importance of a strong Kurdish voice in Germany in an election where immigration is a pivotal issue.
“We need to make the Kurdish voice even stronger. We need to make the migration rules for the Kurds much more important. Germany needs Kurds. Of course, we need to extend the bundeswehr [German armed forces] in Erbil and Kurdistan another year,” Kassem Taher Saleh, who has been in the parliament for three years, told Rudaw’s Diaspora programme that aired on Friday.
Germany has forces based in Baghdad and Erbil as part of the global coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS). The current mission will expire in 2026.
“We will continue to help the Peshmerga, help the Kurds and of course the more Kurds that are in the German parliament, the more the Kurdish voice will gain importance and strength in Germany and Kurdistan,” he said.
Saleh is a member of the Green Party. He said they were the first in the country to create a Kurdish group with the help of other members of parliament to support the Kurdish cause and successfully passed a law recognizing the massacre of the Yazidis as genocide.
He called on voters to not cast a ballot for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
“Do not vote for the AfD party. They are not good, they do not want any migrants here. Their policies are also very bad. Any vote for AfD is a vote for the worst,” he said.
Most of the Kurds in Germany are in the center-left parties, however, there are also members in the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
German parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place on February 23. The CDU is leading in the polls with their ally the Christian Social Union (CSU).
The Green party is in fourth place in the polls, right behind the Social Democratic Party (SPD). It is considered center-left and working class. They are committed to ecological, economic and social sustainability. Their long term goal is a federal European republic.
There are many Kurds in the Green party who hold high positions. The deputy speaker of the North Rhine-Westphalia parliament is a Kurd and he is a candidate for the mayor of Cologne.
The AfD is polling in second place. It is a far-right party that opposes integration and migration. It also publicly condones mass deportations.
The CDU has faced backlash after cooperating with the AfD on an anti-immigration bill they tried to pass late last month.
There is a large Kurdish population in Germany.
