Populists on the left and the right wings of the political spectrum are expected to make huge gains in upcoming elections in three Eastern German states. While voters are upset with how mainstream forces have governed, parties on the left and centre-right are more worried by the possibility of a victory by the anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)—and are already looking at ways to keep it out of power.
Voters in Saxony and Thuringia will head to the ballot box on September 1st to cast their votes in the state elections, and another eastern state, Brandenburg, will hold its elections on September 22nd.
The vote will be the first test for the left-liberal federal government in Berlin since the European elections in June, at which Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats—and one of their coalition partners, the Greens—both suffered heavy losses. Voters expressed their dissatisfaction with the handling of the economy, the energy crisis, the underlying causes of the farmers’ protests, and mass migration.
In a potential sign of what is to come at the regional elections in September, June saw the anti-globalist right-wing AfD finish in second place, after increasing its vote share from 11% to 15.9%—despite attempts by both the political establishment and mainstream media to stigmatise the party as an “extremist” political force.
However, voters in eastern Germany, who have experienced first-hand what it is like to live under authoritarian Communist rule, are pushing back against the liberal elites who wish to force mass migration, green ideology and woke propaganda upon them.
It is no wonder that AfD, which has harshly criticised these policies, is growing strong. Hermann Binkert, founder and head of the INSA polling institute, previously told The European Conservative:
Though [former] East Germans are generally happy to have reunified with the West, they have different attitudes. They are less attached to the mainstream parties of the West. They are more critical of sanctions against Russia and sending weapons to Ukraine, and also the green agenda. According to surveys, the AfD is the most hated party on a national level. In the east, it is the Greens.
AfD is on course to win the elections in Thuringia and Brandenburg, with the party polling at 30% and 24% in these two states. In Saxony, the party is projected to finish strongly in second place with 30%, behind the centre-right CDU, which is polling at 34%.
The main reason the AfD is not faring even better is the emergence of the left-wing nationalist Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht party (BSW), formed by Sahra Wagenknecht after she split from Die Linke, a party which she believes has abandoned its voters by focusing on gender and identity politics, climate change, and sexual minorities—instead of workers and pensioners.
Just like AfD, Wagenknecht’s party is against the influx of migrants and the EU’s green agenda, and supports peace with Russia instead of sending more weapons to Ukraine. With regards to the economy, Wagenknecht criticised the current government for the economic decline, the loss of German industry, and the decoupling from cheap Russian energy. As she declared at the time:
We decided to found a new party because we are convinced that things cannot continue the way they are currently, otherwise we probably won’t recognise our country in ten years.
Though both parties have been labelled “pro-Russian” and “anti-Ukraine” by the liberal establishment, voters in the East aren’t taking the bait, and are rewarding Wagenknecht for her outspokenness. According to recent polling, her party is set to finish third in all three states, polling at 19% in Thuringia, 17% in Brandenburg, and 11% in Saxony.
Meanwhile, her former colleagues in Die Linke are projected to suffer huge losses: the party is hovering around the 5% threshold required to enter parliament in both Brandenburg and Saxony, and is only doing relatively well in Thuringia (16%) because it has governed the state for the past ten years in a coalition with the Social Democrats and the Greens.
The likelihood of AfD and BSW receiving a huge chunk of the votes creates a big dilemma for the mainstream parties which are unwilling to enter into a coalition with the AfD. They would rather ally with forces with seemingly ideologically incompatible policies, as the centre-right CDU, the Social Democrats, and the Greens have done in both Saxony and Brandenburg for many years.
Mainstream parties will find it hard to circumvent both the AfD and BSW, especially in Thuringia, where these two populist parties could receive half of all votes. Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU, previously excluded co-operation with the BSW, calling the party “right-wing extremist on some topics, left-wing extremist on others”. However, after objections from eastern German CDU officials, he clarified that his comments only applied to the national level.
Wagenknecht, on the other hand, rejected entering into coalitions with any party supporting military aid for Ukraine, or the stationing of U.S. missiles in Germany: policies endorsed by both the government and the CDU in Berlin.
Another worry for the mainstream parties is that even if AfD is excluded from power, and remains in opposition, it could block key legislative proposals that require a two-thirds majority. Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Die Linke) fears that the AfD could take a third of the seats in the state, or, as conservative publication Tichys Einblick quipped: “Ramelow fears that eligible voters will vote.”
Whatever the outcome, mainstream parties will finally have to get to grips with reality: a disillusioned electorate in the eastern part of the country that is unwilling to go on the same destructive path that the left and the centre-right have led them.
