Sunday‘s elections in Germany have resulted in a landslide shift to the right. Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has doubled its results and obtained almost 21% of the votes, a remarkable achievement in itself. Never has the political Right gained a higher voter share since the foundation of the Federal Republic in 1949.
Germany’s mainstream media and mainstream parties have tried to build a taboo around ‘right-wing’ ideas. They pretend to fight a ‘hard right,’ but in reality, they do not want any right-wing force, not even a very moderate one. This is evident from the slogan “Kampf gegen rechts,” a constant motto for the mass demonstrations that have been staged again this year.
AfD has broken that taboo and is now for the third time represented in the Bundestag. The party surged on the back of voters’ discontent with mass immigration, heinous deadly attacks by asylum seekers, and the economic decline and gloomy outlook. AfD now holds almost 25% of the seats in the Bundestag. In all five East German states, AfD was the strongest party and secured between 32,5 and 38,7%—the highest in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia.
You could tell by the ashen-faced looks of establishment representatives and journalists on election night that this will make a massive difference to the societal climate and make it harder for the mainstream parties to continue keeping AfD and their voters on the political sidelines.
For Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, the outcome of the election is simply catastrophic. With only 16,4% of the votes, the party had the worst results in a national election since 1887. Friedrich Merz is poised to be the next Chancellor, but his Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party CSU have secured only a combined 28,6%. This is the second-worst result for the Christian Democrats since 1949—hardly a reason for them to celebrate.
Among the many losers of this election is also the disgraced Green party, who receded to 11,6% —minus three points. Many voters have woken up to the fact that Green policies bear the primary responsibility for Germany’s decline, and not even the usual support by their acolytes in the public broadcasting media empire could make up for their disastrous performance in the previous “traffic light” government.
Thus, the situation after the elections leaves Germany at a crossroads. Merz is far from a shining winner. The coalition with the SPD he is now looking to form would be ideologically incoherent and could hardly rise to meet the challenges Germany faces.
Millions of right-of-centre voters will feel betrayed by a ‘grand coalition’ denying them a real change in policy direction.
AfD co-leader Alice Weidel offered her collaboration to the CDU a, but Merz has fundamentally rejected any such advances. He even vowed to step down should his party collaborate with AfD.
Research done by the polling firm Insa on behalf of my newspaper Junge Freiheit ahead of the election has shown that although 33% of voters would support a CDU/CSU coalition with AfD, a large majority is opposed (48% call such a constellation “very bad”, 11% find it “rather bad”).
Thus, there is a clear rationale for the CDU to avoid any move towards a coalition with AfD for now. The entire media establishment would be up in arms and cry wolf with no end. Merz, the “moderate conservative,” is, at heart, not really a conservative who would dare to confront a wall of left-wing resistance.
A shaky CDU/CSU-SPD coalition will face huge challenges and is not guaranteed to last the full four years.
Public finances are tight after two years of recession. While the SPD demands more money for pensioners, the CDU/CSU has promised tax reductions and, at the same time, pushes for a large increase in defence spending. Most likely, there will be a huge controversy among the prospective coalition partners about the fiscal brake—the constitutional rule against incurring more public debt.
Merz promises a restart for Germany, but it looks a lot like a botched one.
On the eve of the election, Merz exclaimed, “[the] left is over.” The truth is, however, that the SPD-left will continue to have considerable power, not least because the party is part of twelve state governments and thus has veto power in the Bundesrat (Federal Council). Unfortunately, despite all the frenzied talk of a “lurch to the right,” Germany will probably go on to muddle through in the middle-of-the-road path.
It is true that the election results deliver a body blow to the establishment parties and serve as a massive warning. A large part of the country is deeply frustrated and disaffected. When Merz became opposition leader three years ago, he vowed to “half the AfD.” In reality, the AfD voter share doubled. It is quite likely that the Merz government will disappoint many expectations, and even more voters will turn to the right. In an interview in Junge Freiheit ahead of the election, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel claimed that “a Merz government will sooner break down than the traffic light coalition.” Perhaps she is right.
Next year, there are five state elections in Germany: in Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatine, Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin, and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Especially in the two East German states Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the AfD has a real chance to grow strong enough to undermine the ‘firewall’ and force a way into a government. This kind of breakthrough can only happen on the state level, not the federal level. To achieve that, the AfD must adopt realistic policies and drop fundamentalist ideas, contain their lunatic fringe, and gain credibility as a constructive party willing and ready to govern. Some progress has been made, however, much more is needed.
International reactions to Sunday’s elections show that the isolation that AfD has suffered for some time seems to be over. Within hours of the first results, there was a stream of congratulatory messages on X from prominent right-wing and conservative politicians. With the conspicuous exemption of Marine Le Pen in France, who remained completely silent, AfD is now seen by the most important European right-wing parties as a legitimate partner that they actively court. Perhaps a merger of the small AfD faction in the European Parliament with the large Patriots alliance is in the cards soon? This would only strengthen AfD’s claim at home: that they represent a movement that is winning all across Europe.
