Plans for negotiations are shaping up in Germany’s eastern state of Thuringia to determine who gets to participate in the next government. It may come as no surprise to the citizens of Germany that despite the anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)’s victory in the elections on September 1st, where they received a third of all votes, the party will be excluded from the talks as the other parties impose their ‘firewall’—or cordon sanitaire.
German media reported that the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which came second with 24%, is even negotiating with the ideologically distant radical Left Die Linke party, the successor of the East German communist party, just so it doesn’t have to govern with the AfD.
According to Bild, CDU Thuringia leader Mario Voigt held talks with representatives of Die Linke on Wednesday, September 12th, to negotiate ways of cooperating.
Following the elections, the AfD has the most seats—32—in the 88-seat state parliament and would easily be able to establish a majority with the CDU, which has 23 seats. The anti-immigration right-wing party has no chance of forming a government, as all the other four parties that got elected reject collaborating with them. The party does, however, have a crucial one-third of the seats, meaning it can block decisions, such as the appointment of judges, that require a two-thirds majority.
This leaves the centre-right CDU with the task of trying to form a government, but it will have to get the support of not only the centre-left Social Democrats (6 seats) but also Die Linke (12) and the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (15), a party that split from Die Linke last year.
Before the elections, CDU leader Friedrich Merz said he would not cooperate with “right-wing extremist and left-wing extremist parties,” calling the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) “right-wing extremist in some issues, left-wing extremist in others.”
However, following the elections, and facing the prospect of tough coalition negotiations, Merz seems to have changed his tune by stating that the BSW is “a largely unknown quantity” for his party. Sure enough: Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht does have some policies, such as a tough stance on migration, that could make it acceptable for some in the CDU. Die Linke not so much: it is a far-left party that espouses identity politics and radical climate and pro-migration policies.
As the conservative publication Apollo News writes:
For the CDU, any form of cooperation with Die Linke is extremely dangerous—even the cooperation with the BSW is not to the liking of many of the party’s supporters. However, a coalition with Die Linke, the direct successors of the East German communists, would be an even greater disaster for the CDU.
According to a survey published in August, 68% of eastern German members of the CDU said their party should not categorically rule out cooperation with the AfD.
Former CDU member of the state legislature Michael Heym said that his party should reconsider its stance on the AfD in light of the election results. He argued that if the AfD was actually anti-constitutional, as its political opponents have declared, then it should have been excluded from participating in the state elections altogether. Since this has not happened, and since the party has such strong support among the electorate, it must also be considered as a possible coalition partner.
Nevertheless, it is Die Linke that is being approached, with the CDU opting to avoid being labelled a racist party by the liberal elites instead of choosing to respect the will of the people in Thuringia and form a strong right-wing government with the AfD.
According to an analysis by the daily Thüringer Allgemeine, ultimately, a minority government may have to be formed, possibly by the three left-wing parties, and with the outside support of the CDU. This would not be unheard of as the centre-right party supported the previous minority government of Bodo Ramelow, a coalition of Die Linke, the Social Democrats, and the Greens (the latter failed to gain entry into the new parliament).
The problem with this scenario is that the coalition’s stability is strongly dependent on the willingness of the CDU to cooperate. Towards the end of the last legislature, for example, the CDU collaborated less and less with the minority government and instead passed laws together with the liberal FDP and AfD.
Whatever happens, the current headache of Thuringia will be followed by another one. The next big test for the establishment parties will be the elections on September 22nd in the eastern state of Brandenburg, where the AfD is also set to receive around a third of the votes.
