The right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany — often abbreviated AFD for its German name, Alternative für Deutschland — has grown increasingly popular since its founding in 2013 by free-market economists keen to strengthen German sovereignty.

Despite a concerted suppression campaign by the liberal German establishment, which has attempted to ban and criminalize the AFD outright, the right-leaning party came in second place in Germany's national elections earlier this year, doubling the vote share it previously won in 2021.

The AFD is hoping for continued success in the local elections scheduled for Sept. 14 in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

'The alternative is too frightening to contemplate seriously.'

The trouble is that its candidates keep dying.

On Sunday, Alice Weidel, the federal co-chairwoman of the AFD, confirmed the report from the German public broadcaster WDR that four candidates — Stefan Berendes, 59; Wolfgang Seitz, 59; Ralph Lange, 66; and Wolfgang Klinger, 71 — had "died suddenly and unexpectedly."

Stefan Homburg, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Hannover, said on X that the cluster of deaths were "statistically almost impossible" — a claim that elicited concern from former Trump adviser Elon Musk, who noted a day earlier that "either Germany votes AFD or it is the end of Germany."

The early and mail-in ballots cast for the dead candidates have reportedly been invalidated.

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Photo by Maryam Majd/Getty Images

The AFD regional association in North Rhine-Westphalia revealed that as of Monday, there were at least another two confirmed deaths of its politicians, reported Politico.

"In my view, it's statistically striking and currently difficult to explain," said AFD deputy federal chairman Stephan Brandner. "I have never heard in my life that politicians of a party die in such a short period of time before an election."

German police suggested that while investigations are ongoing, there is no evidence of foul play.

Days after the Politico report, another AFD candidate, Hans-Joachim Kind, reportedly perished, making a total of at least seven dead AFD candidates just days ahead of the local elections.

Blaze News has reached out to the AFD and to Weidel for comment.

Suspicions online regarding the deaths have been fueled in part by the efforts of German establishmentarians — whose agenda and power is threatened by the AFD — and leftist activists to crush the party.

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AFD co-chairwoman Alice Weidel. Photo by SOEREN STACHE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images.

After designating the AFD as a potential extremist organization in 2021, Germany's domestic intelligence agency placed the party and its federal members under surveillance, tapping their phones and monitoring their movements.

In May, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, a spy agency, officially classified the AFD as a "proven right-wing extremist organization" — a brazen attempt to neutralize the opposition party. That classification has, however, been placed on pause pending the result of a court appeal.

Last year was an especially bad year for institutional attacks on the AFD: An administrative court disarmed party members, barring them from owning firearms; leftist activists succeeded in having the party de-banked; and an AFD politician, Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, was convicted of a hate crime for sharing government statistics about the disproportionate number of gang rapes committed by immigrants, specifically Afghan nationals.

Attacks on the AFD have also taken the form of violence.

Prior to the AFD securing 15.9% of the German vote in last year's European parliamentary elections, a leftist who was tearing down an AFD candidate's campaign posters allegedly stabbed AFD's spokesman for Mannheim, Heinrich Koch, with a carpet knife.

Rod Dreher, a senior fellow at the Danube Institute in Budapest, noted, "What is the likelihood that four candidates and two reserve candidates of the same political party, in the same region, would drop dead suddenly, within 13 days of each other — and just before local elections?"

"It must be hoped that the unfortunate and statistically unlikely deaths of four politicians from a party the German government is considering outlawing were nothing more than a fluke," continued Dreher. "The alternative is too frightening to contemplate seriously."

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