Germany’s far-right party won its first regional elections in Thuringia on Sunday, September 1. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, led by Björn Höcke, won the elections with between 30.5% and 33.5% of the votes, according to initial estimates.
In neighbouring Saxony, the party is tied with the conservative CDU for first place in exit polls, with between 30% and 31.5% of the vote. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats recorded another electoral setback, with an estimated score of between 6.5% and 8.5% in these two regions.
An AfD victory in a regional election would be the first in the country since the post-war period, even if the party is unlikely to lead a government as the other parties reject any coalition with it. However, it further undermines the chancellor’s unpopular coalition government with the Greens and the liberal FDP, one year before the 2025 legislative elections.
Knife attack
The elections in the region, as well as in Saxony, come just over a week after the triple knife murder blamed on a Syrian in Solingen in the west of the country shocked the country and reignited a heated debate over immigration. AfD leaders sought to capitalise on the shock of the attack, accusing successive federal governments of sowing hatred. ” chaos “The alleged attacker, suspected of having links to the jihadist organisation Islamic State (IS), managed to escape an expulsion decision.
Under pressure, Scholz’s government announced a tightening of gun laws and immigration controls. The chancellor returned to Solingen on Sunday to attend a ceremony in honour of the victims. “This crime touches our hearts, it makes us angry”declared in his account X. “We owe it to the victims and their loved ones to draw the conclusions”.
The AfD, essentially eurosceptic when it was created in 2013, became radicalised after the great migration crisis of 2015, the Covid-19 pandemic and then the Russian war in Ukraine that weakened Europe’s largest economy and caused inflation to soar. It has scored several electoral successes in recent months, obtaining its best result ever in the European elections in June by attracting the largest number of people with its virulent anti-immigration speeches and by calling for an end to arms deliveries to Ukraine, a position very popular in these regions of the former communist GDR where the fear of war remains deeply rooted.
