“We are all in suspense. “These are fateful elections,” a friend from Leipzig told me last Sunday. That day, regional elections were taking place in Saxony and the neighboring state of Thuringia. The mood was tense, even fearful. There was much more at stake than a simple reshuffle of seats in two German regional parliaments.
As expected, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) won in Thuringia with almost 33 percent of the vote and came second in Saxony with almost 31 percent. For the first time since World War II, a far-right party has become a significant political force in Germany.
If there was unrest, it was not immediately visible. Mario Voigt, leader of the Thuringian Christian Democratic Union (CDU) section, assumed the role of the election winner, even though his party came second with 24 percent of the vote. Voigt announced that he would enter into coalition negotiations with other “democratic center parties,” i.e. without the AfD. In Saxony, where the CDU narrowly won, its regional leader, Michael Kretschmer, also ruled out a coalition with the far right. This means that in both states, the center-right party will have to conclude complex alliances with two or three left-wing parties.
Loss of confidence
Even if it is difficult to justify from a strictly democratic point of view, there are good reasons for maintaining the “firewall” or “cordon sanitaire” around the AfD. The party’s regional branches in Thuringia and Saxony have been classified as “right-wing extremists” by the German intelligence services. But where is the consternation of the traditional parties at having lost the trust of huge sections of the population?
In Thuringia, almost half of voters opted for the AfD or another new party, the pro-Russian Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which is left on economic issues and right on migration policies. In Saxony, the AfD and BSW won a combined 42 percent of the vote. In light of these results, building “stable governments without right-wing extremists,” as demanded by Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), is a strategy to buy time. But a plan is needed to win back voters.
The SPD was virtually wiped out in last weekend’s elections, with 6% and 7% in Thuringia and Saxony, respectively. Scholz called the defeat “bitter,” but did not acknowledge its significance, arguing that “the gloomy predictions about the SPD have not come true.” How could he not? The SPD may have passed the 5% threshold needed to enter a German parliament, but it will be a finished political force if nothing changes. Polls suggest that nationally, it is lagging behind the AfD.
The fault lies in the East
Discontent with traditional politicians has long been considered a peculiarity of the former East Germany, especially Saxony and Thuringia. Bundestag Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt, a Green from Thuringia, is not alone in claiming that some East Germans are “trapped in the glorification of dictatorship.” Today, Göring-Eckardt’s Greens have lost their seats in the Thuringian parliament and are polling at 11 percent in national polls. Telling voters that their concerns are not real is not, it seems, a good electoral strategy.
But East Germans are far from being anti-democratic. Lively pre-election public debates took place everywhere. Politics were discussed at work and in the kitchen. Turnout was record high: three-quarters of citizens voted. East Germans are not tired of politics or democracy. They are tired of not being taken seriously.
The same can be said for other demographic groups. A staggering 37% of young voters in Thuringia voted for the far-right AfD. In Saxony, the percentage in this group was 31%. While higher than the national average, it is still in line with what happened in the European elections in June, in which the AfD beat all three parties in Scholz’s coalition in the 16-24 age group and remained in second place with 16%, just one point behind the conservatives.
The far right also won the working-class vote in the European elections, but this was little publicized and does not seem to have alarmed the other parties. The working class used to make up the bulk of the SPD’s electoral base, accounting for more than 30% of the party’s vote in every election between the late 1950s and 2005. That this percentage has fallen to historically low levels is not due to this. East Germans do not understand democracy.
Immigration and Electricity Prices
If you ask Germans what their biggest concerns are, immigration tops the list, followed by energy prices, war and the economy. One word I’ve heard over and over again in recent months is “anxiety.”
With more immigrants being accused of violent crimes, and with those crimes on the rise, many believe the findings are due to a security problem. But it’s not just about immigration: People, especially in the East but also in the rest of Germany, say they feel a deep fear about the country’s economic and political future.
These are uncomfortable topics to discuss, especially for left-wing parties, but debating them is exactly what they should be doing, instead of ceding the monopoly on these issues to the far right. Debating them does not mean giving in to populism. If centrists do not initiate a constructive debate on sensitive issues, no one will.
The response to the results of these regional elections must go beyond preventing the far right from taking power. This is a wake-up call for Germany’s traditional parties. I hope this will be heard loud and clear in Berlin.
Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian and journalist.
Translation by Julián Cnochaert.
