The first overtly nationalist party to enter the German parliament in half a century has already taken over a number of formal traditions usually handed to opposition leaders. It has installed Peter Boehringer, an outspoken critic of eurozone rescues and the European Central Bank, as chair of the influential budget committee.

Through Boehringer, the AfD will be able to appoint like-minded civil servants to vacant secretarial positions and slow down the parliamentary process for policies of which it disapproves, but not gain any more voting power. The budget committee has been chaired for the last three years by Gesine Lötzsch of leftwing Die Linke – not long ago a controversial party in its own right for its ties to the ruling party of communist East Germany, and for some, an indicator of the chairmanship’s limited political influence.

The AfD has also secured the chairmanship of two further parliamentary committees, for legal affairs and tourism. “The AfD tolerates Nazi slogans, gets caught up in internal fights and uses parliament as an agitprop stage,” leftwing daily taz commented in a recent op-ed. “But that doesn’t seem to affect their popularity. Apparently AfD voters want precisely that: a rightwing protest party.”