What the AfD’s Historic Victory Means for Germany
https://archive.ph/RYxTL
"Alternative für Deutschland’s success in east German state elections marks a major blow to the government in Berlin. The AfD is set to win almost a third of the vote in Thuringia – putting it nine points ahead of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU). The AfD’s top candidate in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, hailed a ‘historic victory’. Despite the best efforts of the centrist parties, the AfD is not going away.
In the lead-up to the elections in Saxony and Thuringia, polls indicated that the two parties were on course to do well. In fact, the AfD – which also won 30 per cent of the vote in Saxony – managed to become the strongest party in Thuringia. The other parties are still determined to lock the AfD out, meaning that the forming of a new state government will be significantly difficult. But while the party has little hope of actually gaining power in Thuringia, Sunday’s elections are a clear sign that the AfD is here to stay.
Despite the party’s Saxony and Thuringia chapters being classed as rightwing extremist by security authorities, voters were not deterred from backing the party. In the wake of the results, German chancellor Olaf Scholz urged mainstream parties to exclude ‘right-wing extremists’ from power. ‘Our country cannot and must not get used to this. The AfD is damaging Germany,’ Scholz said. But even if the mainstream parties do succeed in preventing the AfD gaining a foothold in state parliaments, Scholz’s comments fail to answer the question of why so many turned out to support the AfD.
But support for the AfD is not only confined to the country’s east. The AfD has enjoyed rising popularity in a few west German states. In 2023, the party won 14.6 per cent of the votes in Bavaria and 18.4 per cent in Hesse. The state election in Brandenburg, which will take place in three weeks, will likely see another win for the AfD, while recent polls predict the BSW to finish fourth behind the SPD and the CDU.
The mathematical truth now in the wake of the east German election results is that the stronger the AfD, and potentially Wagenknecht’s new party become, the harder it will be for centrist parties to avoid collaborating with either of the two. Germany’s mainstream parties can no longer pretend the AfD is a political force that will simply disappear.
Π
