German Elections, Far-Right Boom in Regionals: “Historic Victory in the East”

Far-right surges in German regional elections. German anti-immigration party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) calls it a “historic success”with a big win in the eastern state of Thuringia. The AfD won nearly a third of the vote, nine points ahead of the conservative CDU and significantly more than Germany’s three governing parties.

With this result, the far right gets the first victory in state parliamentary elections since World War IIalthough it has little hope of forming a government in Thuringia.

Saxony results correct, AfD and CDU one seat less

As regards the Saxonythe electoral authorities have the result is correct reporting that, due to a software error, an incorrect distribution of seats had been published. As a result, the Greens and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) each gained one more seat, while the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) each gained one seat less than initially indicated.

Following the new calculation, AfD has lost its so-called ‘blocking minority’ in the German stateDespite the change, the outgoing regional government coalition of CDU, Greens and SPD does not reach a majority.

The term ‘blocking minority’ means that a party has more than a third of the seats. This is a threshold that allows it to block the approval of certain regional laws, which require a two-thirds majority of deputies to pass. In Saxony, as in other states, the constitutional judges and the president of the Court of Audit, for example, are elected with a two-thirds majority of all deputies. Some positions would therefore not have been filled without the approval of the AfD, which could also have prevented the dissolution of the state parliament.

According to the adjusted results, the CDU won 41 seats and the AfD 40. The left-wing populist alliance of Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), founded last January, has 15 seats, the SPD 10 and the Greens seven. Finally, the Left wins six seats and the independents one.