The far-right AfD win big in German elections. So what now?

The far-right, populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is celebrating a “historic success” in local elections in the east of the country, says the BBC. The party topped the polls in the state of Thuringia, with almost a third of the vote – nine points ahead of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). It also came a close second to the CDU in Saxony. This gives the far right its first victory in a state election since World War II. 

The AfD’s rise is “more troubling” than those of equivalents in France or Italy, says the Financial Times. While most hard-right parties in Europe have tried to moderate or at least downplay their most unsavoury elements, AfD members “openly espouse ethno-nationalist and xenophobic views”. The AfD leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, has previously been convicted of using banned Nazi slogans. 

"That nearly a third of voters in Thuringia and Saxony voted for it is deeply unsettling."

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To make matters worse, another 10%-15% voted for “the populist hard-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), whose anti-immigrant and pro-Russia stances chime with the AfD’s”.

Can the AfD last?

Other parties refuse to cooperate with the AfD, so the far-right won’t end up in power, and state governments don’t have any direct input on foreign policy anyway, says The Economist. However, the “large chunk” of seats the AfD now occupies will force the other parties into “ideologically garbled coalitions”. These are likely to include the BSW, producing state governments that are “precision-engineered for chaos”. 

Already, Sahra Wagenknecht, the BSW’s founder, is demanding that any coalitions that her party takes part in are committed to rejecting chancellor Olaf Scholz’s recent agreement to station long-range American missiles in Germany from 2026.

What does this mean for German elections?

These elections are an “emphatic slap around the chops” of the German political establishment, says Oliver Moody in The Times. The current coalition is deeply unpopular, while the established opposition has failed “to squeeze out the hard right”.

The fact that nearly half the voters in Thuringia and more than 40% in Saxony “have turned their backs on the established parties” suggests that “a large share of the electorate clearly feel that the political system no longer works for them”.

While Germany “is not in any sense heading back to the early Thirties”, politicians of the mainstream parties urgently need to “treat this warning with the seriousness it deserves”. 

At the very least, the mainstream German parties must stop telling voters, especially those in eastern states, that “their concerns aren’t real”, says Katja Hoyer in The Guardian. Particularly important issues include immigration, energy prices and the economy, as well as more generally “a deeper fear for the economic and political future of the country”. While such topics may be “uncomfortable” for centrists to discuss, ignoring them, or attempting to shut down discussion, effectively gives the AfD “a monopoly over those issues”. What’s more, it should be possible to have a “constructive debate” without “plunging into populism”.

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