SPD hires German AfD specialists for its election graphics

The Czech movement SPD has brought in specialists from Germany's "Alternative for Germany" (AfD) party to help prepare its campaign ahead of the autumn municipal elections. SPD MP Jaroslav Foldyna told the publication that the move was meant to strengthen the campaign ahead of the local elections scheduled for October.

According to Foldyna, the cooperation with AfD came as a response from SPD's leadership to his own call not to leave campaign work solely to the party's membership base and municipal branches. "German specialists from AfD prepared new graphics expressing SPD's policies. The graphic manual turned out really well," the MP said, noting that cooperation with the German colleagues had never been this intensive before.

SPD press secretary Lenka Čejková confirmed the information: "Our new graphics were made by a German graphic design studio that also works for AfD. This studio prepared a new logo design and the graphics we've presented." According to her, this doesn't amount to any serious political cooperation — SPD and AfD simply sit in the same faction in the European Parliament and are friendly parties.

New graphic posts and the new logo began appearing on the movement's Facebook pages, as well as on the page of its leader Tomio Okamura, around mid-June. The German influence is clearly visible — for instance, in the colored diagonal stripes in the corners, which AfD also uses on its posters and billboards, though SPD renders them in Czech national colors.

Okamura himself hinted at the upcoming cooperation back in June: "We reached out to a German graphic design studio recommended to us by AfD — a party currently topping the polls in Germany."

It's worth recalling that last year Germany's domestic intelligence agency officially designated AfD as a proven right-wing extremist organization, yet the party has continued to gain popularity — this spring's state elections confirmed its rising support even in western Germany, and the September vote in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania could give AfD control of a federal state for the first time. The Czech SPD itself had repeatedly appeared in the Interior Ministry's annual extremism report in past years, though last year's edition no longer mentions the movement — even as prosecutors have brought hate-speech charges against both SPD and Okamura personally.

Political scientist Otto Eibl believes SPD and AfD have a great deal in common, both in their themes and their political style. "Their histories are very similar in terms of anti-immigration rhetoric. Even before AfD, Okamura flirted with French National Rally leader Marine Le Pen and Italy's former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini," the expert noted. He added that SPD might also borrow from its German counterparts the use of artificial intelligence to create campaign visuals — both AfD and SPD have actively used generative AI, including SPD's controversial poster featuring "imported surgeons," for which a court fined the movement 3 million crowns.

At the same time, Eibl points to a contradiction: AfD has repeatedly called for revising the Beneš decrees, something SPD categorically opposes. Some AfD MPs, in fact, supported abolishing the decrees last year. The political scientist also doubts that cooperation with AfD will significantly boost SPD's support, since Okamura's position is currently weaker than that of the rising German party, and SPD's ratings had already been declining before the election — which is why the movement brought in Jindřich Rajchl and the Freedom and Direct Democracy's ally, the "Free" party (Svobodní), as partners.

Borrowing foreign campaign strategies is nothing new for Czech parties: in the past, local politicians drew inspiration from the rebranding of former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's party, and in 2010 ODS copied the visual style of the British Conservatives, styling then-leader Petr Nečas after David Cameron.

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz