When Europeans head to the polls next month to elect a new Parliament, most will vote based on whom they oppose rather than whom they support, according to a new study. Extremist, populist parties stand to benefit.
Most other EU citizens will use their ballots to thwart parties they oppose rather than support a particular group. The researchers said this type of "negative" voting could benefit political movements on the fringes and make it more difficult to form a majority in Parliament.
10.3% of voters said they would back right-wing populist or extreme-right parties — the highest level of voter approval of any single political grouping.
6.2% said they positively identified with the radical left and 4.4% with a Greens party.
A large portion of voters were driven by whom they opposed — only an average 6.3% identified positively with a party, compared to the 49% who named a party they would never vote for.
52% said they would never vote for extremist parties on either end of the political spectrum.
While 50.7% said they would never vote for the business-aligned Free Democrats (FDP), 47.8% wouldn't vote for conservatives like the Christian Democrats, and 42% rejected the center-left Social Democratic SPD and socialist parties.
Two-thirds of all Europeans, and three-quarters of Germans, polled said they planned to participate in the vote.
The researchers argued that voters who feel the mainstream pro-European parties no longer represent their interests tend to engage with populist messages.
"The populist parties have managed to create a stable and loyal voter base in a relatively short space of time," study co-author and Bertelsmann democracy expert Robert Vehrkamp said. "But the high level of rejection (of these parties) also shows how dangerous it would be for other parties to imitate them."
"Many citizens no longer choose to back one party, but rather vote against parties they oppose the most," he added.
"The mobilization of the predominantly pro-European center is an important prerequisite," for creating working majorities in the new European Parliament, he added.
The number of women supporting far-right populist parties is on the rise in Europe. These are some of the women influencing far-right politics across the bloc.
Image: AP
France: Marine Le Pen
Marine Le Pen has led France's far-right populist National Rally party, formerly known as the National Front, since 2011. Le Pen has tried to soften her party's far-right image, going as far as to expel her own father — the party's founder — from the party after he referred to Nazi gas chambers as "a point of detail of the history of World War II."
Image: Reuters/E. Gailard
Germany: Frauke Petry
Frauke Petry's anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policies helped the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) enter the German parliament in 2017. She quit as leader of the AfD in September, 2017, due to what she said were extremist statements by other party leaders preventing "constructive opposition." She now sits as an independent in both the national and regional Saxony parliament in Germany.
Image: picture-alliance/Eventpress
Germany: Alice Weidel
Alice Weidel has been co-chair of the AfD since October, 2017 following Petry's departure. A 2013 email revealed Weidel describing Germany as being "overrun by culturally foreign people such as Arabs, Sinti and Roma." The email also described the government as "pigs" who were "puppets of WWII allies." Weidel's party opposes same-sex marriage, but she in a same-sex partnership herself.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B. von Jutrczenka
Poland: Beata Szydlo
Beata Szydlo is the Deputy Prime Minister of Poland and vice chairman of the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS) that holds the majority in the parliament. The party is strongly against EU migrant quotas and in 2017, then-Prime Minister Szydlo came under fire for seemingly using an appearance at former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi German death camp to highlight her anti-migrant policies.
Image: Getty Images
Norway: Siv Jensen
Siv Jensen leads Norway's Progress party, which is a part of the center-right government coalition. She promotes individual rights and freedoms, and has listed former British Conservative Party Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher among her political heroes. Jensen is an outspoken supporter of Israel, and has called to move the Norwegian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Italy: Giorgia Meloni
Co-founder and leader of the national conservative Brothers of Italy party, Giorgia Meloni has a long history in far-right politics. She joined the Youth Front, the youth-wing of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, at age 15. From May 2008 to November 2011 Meloni was minister of youth under Silvio Berlusconi. Her party is currently in the center-right coalition that's in power in Italy.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Denmark: Pia Kjaersgaard
Pia Kjaersgaard is co-founder of the far-right Danish People's Party, which she led from 1995 to 2012. She is known for her strong anti-multiculturalism and immigration views. Her main interests are stemming immigration into Denmark and care for the elderly. In 2003, she lost a libel suit in the Danish Supreme Court against anti-EU activist Karen Sunds who had said Kjaersgaard's views were racist.
Image: AP
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Polling institute YouGov interviewed 23,725 voters in 12 EU member states for the survey, which analyzes how Europeans intend to vote in the parliamentary elections on May 26.
