Germany | Far-right party wins regional election for first time

(Berlin) The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won a regional election in the east of the country for the first time on Sunday. According to projections for the second round of voting, it is expected to come in at least second, very close behind the conservatives.

A new party founded by a prominent leftist also had an immediate impact, while the parties of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unpopular national government performed extremely poorly.

Projections by public broadcasters ARD and ZDF, based on exit polls and a partial count, showed the AfD winning 32 to 33 percent of the vote in Thuringia – well ahead of the Christian Democratic Union, the main national opposition party, with around 24 percent.

In Saxony, projections put support for the CDU – which has ruled the state since German reunification in 1990 – at 31.7 percent, with the AfD between 30.6 and 31.4 percent.

“For the first time since 1949, an openly far-right party has become the most powerful force in a regional parliament, which is causing a lot of concern and fear among many people,” said Omid Nouripour, a leader of the Greens, one of the ruling parties at the national level.

Other parties say they will not bring the AfD to power by joining it in a coalition. Still, its strength is likely to make it extremely difficult to form new regional governments, forcing parties to form new and unprecedented coalitions. The new Sahra Wagenknecht, or BSW, alliance won up to 16% of the vote in Thuringia and 12% in Saxony, adding another layer of complication.

“This is a historic success for us,” Alice Weidel, the AfD’s co-national leader, told ARD. She described the result as a requiem for Chancellor Scholz’s coalition.

CDU national general secretary Carsten Linnemann said his party would stick to its longstanding refusal to work with the far right. “Voters in both states knew that we would not form a coalition with the AfD, and that will remain the case – we are very, very clear about that,” he said.

M^me Weidel denounced this as “pure ignorance” and claimed that “voters want the AfD to be in government.”

A rise of populism

Deep discontent with a national government known for infighting, anti-immigration sentiment and skepticism about German military aid to Ukraine are among the factors that have contributed to support for populist parties in the region, which is less prosperous than West Germany.

The AfD is at its strongest in the formerly communist east, and the national intelligence service officially monitors the party’s branches in Saxony and Thuringia as “definitely right-wing extremist” groups. Its leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, was convicted of knowingly using a Nazi slogan at political events, but he has appealed.

Mr Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats were at least on track to remain in both state legislatures with single-digit support, but the Greens appeared set to lose their seats in Thuringia. Both parties were partners in the young coalition of the two outgoing state governments. The third party in the national government, the Liberal Democrats, was also set to lose its seats in Thuringia. It had no representation in Saxony.

A third regional election follows on September 22 in another eastern state, Brandenburg, currently run by Mr Scholz’s party. Germany’s next national election is scheduled in just over a year.

Thuringia’s politics are particularly complicated because the Left Party of incumbent governor Bodo Ramelow, which led a minority government, has fallen into electoral irrelevance at the national level. Projections showed it losing almost two-thirds of its support compared to five years ago, falling to around 12 percent.

Sahra Wagenknecht, who has long been one of the party’s best-known figures, jumped ship last year to found her own party, which has now outstripped the left.^me Wagenknecht celebrated what she described as an unprecedented success for a new party. She stressed her refusal to work with the AfD’s Mr Höcke and said she hoped he could form “a good government” with the CDU.

The CDU has long refused to work with the left-wing party, which emerged from the communists ruling East Germany. It has not ruled out working with M’s BSW^me Wagenknecht – which will probably be necessary to form a government without the AfD, at least in Thuringia. The BSW is also at its peak in the east.

The AfD has exploited strong anti-immigration sentiment in the region. The August 23 stabbing attack in Solingen, in the west of the country, in which a suspected Syrian extremist is accused of killing three people, helped bring the issue back to the forefront of German politics and prompted Mr. Scholz’s government to announce new restrictions on knives and new measures to facilitate deportations.

M’s BSW^me Wagenknecht combines a left-wing economic policy with a sceptical agenda on immigration. The CDU has also stepped up pressure on the national government to take a tougher stance on immigration.

Germany’s position on Russia’s war in Ukraine is also a sensitive issue in the East. Berlin is the second largest arms supplier to Ukraine after the United States; these arms deliveries are something that both the AfD and the BSW oppose. M^me Wagenknecht also criticized a recent decision by the German government and the United States to begin deploying long-range missiles in Germany by 2026.