Jörg Urban, top candidate of the far-right Alternative for Germany party in Saxony's state elections, arrives Sunday for the party's election night gathering in Dresden.
By Freddie Clayton
Germany’s far right has won the most votes in a state election for the first time since the Nazi era, in a major rebuke of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling center-left coalition.
Federal elections were held in Germany on 26 September 2021 to elect the members of the 20th Bundestag. State elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern were also held. Incumbent chancellor Angela Merkel, first elected in 2005, chose not to run again, marking the first time that an incumbent Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany did not seek re-election
Projections from public broadcasters ARD and ZDF based on exit polls suggest that the anti-immigration, nationalist party Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has finished first in the east German state of Thuringia, securing about 31% to 33% of the vote.
The Christian Democratic Union, Germany’s second-largest party, finished second with 24.5% of the votes in Thuringia. Scholz's Social Democratic Party appears to have cleared the 5% threshold needed to make it into the state parliaments.
With 25.7% of total votes, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) recorded their best result since 2005, and emerged as the largest party for the first time since 2002. The ruling CDU/CSU, which had led a grand coalition with the SPD since 2013, recorded their worst ever result with 24.1%, a significant decline from 32.9% in 2017. Alliance 90/The Greens achieved their best result in history at 14.7%, while the Free Democratic Party (FDP) made small gains and finished on 11.4%. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) fell from third to fifth place with 10.4%, a decline of 2.3 percentage points. The Left suffered their worst showing since their official formation in 2007, failing to cross the 5% electoral threshold by just over one-tenth of a percentage point. The party was nonetheless entitled to full proportional representation, as it won three direct constituencies.
With a fifth grand coalition being dismissed by both the CDU/CSU and the SPD, the FDP and the Greens were considered kingmakers. On 23 November, following complex coalition talks, the SPD, FDP and Greens formalized an agreement to form a traffic light coalition, which was approved by all three parties. Olaf Scholz and his cabinet were elected by the Bundestag on 8 December.
Irregularities in Berlin led to repeat elections in February 2023 (state) and February 2024 (federal). The result of the federal repeat election meant that the FDP lost a seat in the Bundestag, while 3 other seats were moved from Berlin to different states.
In Saxony, another east German state in the heart of what was once communist East Germany, the AfD has 30% to 31% of the vote, putting it neck-and-neck with the CDU, which has 31.5% to 32% of the vote, according to projection polls.
All other parties have vowed not to form coalitions with the AfD, so it remains to be seen whether it will be able to win any real governing power.
But the AfD’s success in Thuringia in a huge win nonetheless for a party that was launched only in 2013.
And the results make grim reading for Scholz, who will seek re-election in 12 months with his party now polling behind a galvanized AfD.
What Germany’s upcoming state elections reveal about the far right, Scholz’s future, and more
“The results for the AfD in Saxony and Thuringia are worrying,” Scholz said in a statement to the Reuters news agency. He clarified he was talking as a lawmaker for his center-left SPD.
Our country cannot and must not get used to this. The AfD is damaging Germany. It is weakening the economy, dividing society and ruining our country’s reputation,” Scholz said.
Looking at a map, eastern Germany is on the right. Looking at the polls, that’s where the far right is too. On Sunday, the German states of Thuringia and Saxony are holding elections, and polls show that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) could finish first. Following the AfD’s success in the European Parliament elections in June, state elections (including one next month in neighboring Brandenburg) might further boost Germany’s far right ahead of national elections next year. And in yet another challenge for the centrist parties that have dominated German politics since the end of the Cold War, a new far-left party, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), has seen a surge of support in these states.
Pollsters had predicted a strong showing from the far-right AfD, despite a string of controversies linked to its leadership. The party is under monitoring by the country’s domestic intelligence agency for suspected extremism, while party leader Björne Höcke has twice been found guilty by a German court of purposely employing Nazi rhetoric, while. He has appealed the rulings.
In May, the party’s top candidate, Maximilian Krah, was forced to withdraw from campaigning after he told an Italian newspaper that the SS, the Nazis’ main paramilitary force, were “not all criminals.” One of his aides was also charged with spying for China, and another candidate faced allegations of receiving bribes from a pro-Russian news portal
1. What is the state of play? Who are the key people and parties in the race?
In both elections, the far-right AfD and the far-left BSW are set to achieve strong results. The only traditional party positioned to challenge the AfD in these elections is the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), as polling shows all other mainstream parties falling under 10 percent in both elections. Given the strength of the AfD and BSW, it might be impossible to form a government in either state without one of them. However, because the CDU refuses to work with the AfD, BSW would seemingly emerge as the only option—which is an unlikely coalition match.
In Thuringia, the AfD is poised to decisively defeat the CDU. Bjorn Höcke, the AfD’s highly controversial state party leader, is the dominant figure in the AfD’s campaign and its candidate for minister-president. Running against Höcke are the CDU’s Mario Voigt and Bodo Ramelow of the Left Party, who is the current minister-president of Thuringia. However, while the CDU is polling in second at 23 percent, Ramelow’s Left Party is polling in fourth place, well behind BSW’s 18 percent.
But the party has nonetheless gained massive ground and support, particularly among younger voters.
Set up as a movement against the euro currency, the AfD shifted its focus to Islam and immigration and has grown in popularity at both the local and national levels ever since, particularly in the former East Germany, the former communist half of the country, which had strong ties to the then-Soviet Union; polling has shown there is more skepticism about NATO and Germany’s support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
In June’s European Parliament elections, the party finished second in Germany, and voters have now offered their support in the state elections as the AfD has capitalized on growing disillusionment with Scholz’s governing coalition.
The coalition, made up of the center-left Social Democrats, the environmentalist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats, has struggled to grapple with Russia’s war with Ukraine, slow economic growth, advance the transition to green energy and a respond to renewed debate about migration sparked by a recent terrorist attack.
2. What are the expectations for the far right and far left? What is driving their rise?
The German states of Saxony and Thuringia head to the polls this weekend, and the right-wing AfD hopes for an outcome that will secure its place as the strongest party in eastern Germany. The party wants to win, and it may do so by a large margin. In fact, a win in Thuringia or Saxony would be a first state election-level victory for the AfD. A win in both would be a political earthquake. If either outcome comes to pass, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone watching German politics. Over the past few months—indeed, over the past few years—the AfD has jumped in the polls, sitting at a comfortable 17 percent nationwide, and at around 30 percent in both Saxony and Thuringia. By comparison, the SPD is hovering at around 6 percent in both states.
The AfD made the most of a drop in support for the ruling parties.
Its emergence as a major political force has severely weakened Germany’s mainstream political parties, and it could force others into tense and unlikely alliances. And if the AfD wins a third of the seats in either Thuringia or Saxony, it will be able to block votes requiring two-thirds majorities.
It is also best placed to further challenge the status quo in next year’s general elections. On the national level, it is polling as the country’s second-biggest party, with 18%, ahead of Scholz' SDP.
3. What would an AfD victory mean for the governments in Saxony and Thuringia?
In the event of a victory for the far right, the question becomes: Will it actually be able to govern? While it might eke out a win, it’s highly unlikely it will garner the over 50 percent necessary to form an outright majority. So it will likely need a coalition.
Thus far, other parties, such as the CDU, have said they won’t enter a coalition with the AfD at either the state or national level. Think of it as a kind of cordon sanitaire—a political tactic whereby political parties refuse to cooperate with the party (or parties) they view as threats, therefore keeping them out of governance and keeping their dangerous policies at bay. The AfD certainly falls into this category. But this means other unlikely bedfellows, such as the CDU and the BSW, might find themselves with the once inconceivable choice of working together. The seeming impossibility of that scenario might mean we’ll see some interesting political posturing not just over the coming weeks, but over the coming months as Germany starts to look ahead to next year’s federal election. We’ll have to wait until after the votes are tallied in Saxony and Thuringia to see what happens at the state level, but one thing is for certain: The next year of German politics is about to heat up.
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