German AfD ultras win Thuringia elections, according to projections

The far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has won the elections held this Sunday in the federal state of Thuringia, in the east of the country. Björn Höcke, the most radical leader of this formation classified as right-wing extremist by the internal German secret services, thus becomes the candidate with the most votes in this election. land The German party has a population of just over two million. According to projections by the public broadcaster ARD at 8 p.m., Höcke won 32.4 percent of the votes. In Saxony, the other former East German state that went to the polls today, the ultras came second with 30.7 percent of the vote, behind the Christian Democrats of the CDU, who won with 31.8 percent.

Saxony and Thuringia are two of Germany’s smallest states. Together they have just over five million inhabitants. But the far-right’s strong showing in the east could trigger a political earthquake that will be felt in Berlin, where Olaf Scholz’s coalition government, made up of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals, is at its lowest point in popularity. The government is also weakened by constant internal disputes and is under great pressure to take drastic measures in immigration policy after the attack in Solingen, in which a 26-year-old Syrian refugee allegedly stabbed three people to death and seriously injured five others.

The fact that the AfD is the largest party does not mean that it can govern. In fact, it is unlikely to do so, given the cordon sanitaire maintained by the other political parties. Nevertheless, the victory of the extremists is a shock in a country that had managed to keep the extreme right in a minority and that until now had only touched power at the local level. For the first time since World War II, a far-right party will have the largest number of seats in a German state parliament. Even if Höcke does not govern, his strength will allow him to block constitutional changes and even the appointment of judges.

The leader of the AfD in Thuringia has claimed his right to govern in an interview he gave to public television in the regional parliament. Höcke, who came onto the set with Bodo Ramelow, the current Prime Minister of Thuringia, from the Left Party, was angry with the presenter, who reminded him right from the start that his party is considered right-wing extremist. “We are the number one people’s party in Thuringia. We should not be called far-right,” he told him. The far-right leader said he was “extremely happy and proud” of his voters. “This country needs change, and only AfD can bring it about,” he added.

The AfD has banned all press from its post-election party, which is being held in an Italian restaurant in the Thuringian capital, close to the regional parliament. The party tried to prevent the entry of journalists it considers to be treating it poorly, such as those from the weekly The Spiegelbut the media resorted to legal action and won. Unable to choose which journalists it could invite, the party decided on Saturday evening to reject them all and close the premises completely to its members and supporters.

The other winner of the Thuringian election is the party of charismatic left-wing populist leader Sahra Wagenknecht, which will be key to forming a government. Founded just nine months ago as a breakaway from Die Linke, the post-communist left-wing party received 15.6 percent of the vote. A large part of its voters come from Die Linke, which has lost more than 18 percentage points compared to the 2019 election.

In Saxony, Wagenknecht’s party (BSW) has obtained 12% of the votes. With this number of deputies in both countriesThe party is ready to negotiate with the conservatives of the CDU to form alliances and enter into a government or to allow a minority government.

According to the projections, which in Germany are usually only a few tenths of a percentage point off the final results, all three parties in Olaf Scholz’s coalition are losing support compared to the previous elections. The liberal FDP did not get the minimum of 5% to enter either parliament. The Greens also failed to do so in Thuringia (4%) and in Saxony they did so by a narrow margin (5.2%). The Social Democrats are holding on, but are much weakened. In Thuringia they got 6.2%, while in Saxony the result was better, with 7.6%.

Scholz’s SPD had just obtained its worst result in more than a century in the European elections in June (13.9%), a humiliating third place behind the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) that left the chancellor’s leadership in serious jeopardy. His coalition with the Greens and Liberals accounted for just 31% of the votes with a record turnout (64.8%) and left a question hanging in the air: whether the government would hold out until autumn 2025. It is very likely that the same question will arise on Monday in the electoral hangover from these elections in eastern Germany.

Tangled situation

With the final results, which will be known in the early hours of the morning, the parties represented in the two parliaments begin the complicated task of negotiating coalition governments. The situation is particularly complicated. The strength of the AfD, which concentrates almost a third of the vote, means that the numbers of the rest are not enough for solo governments in either of the two parliaments. countries.

André Brodocz, a political scientist at the University of Erfurt, explains: “Since the other parties refuse to form a coalition with the AfD, the probability of it being directly part of the government is very low. There is only a very, very small chance that Höcke will become prime minister if the other parties cannot agree on a coalition. Then he could become a prime minister.” accidentally “The leader of a minority government, as Thomas Kemmerich did in 2020.” This refers to what happened in 2020, when the election of the liberal candidate with AfD votes caused an earthquake that ended the career of Angela Merkel’s successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, then CDU chairwoman.

The CDU appears to be best placed to try to lead coalition governments in both states. Christian Democrat Michael Kretschmer, Minister President of Saxony, has said that he is “ready to continue to assume responsibility.” He currently governs with the Social Democrats and the Greens, an alliance that could be repeated, although a combination with the Greens and the BSW would also be possible. “Cooperation with the AfD is absolutely out of the question,” he stressed.

In Thuringia, CDU leader Mario Voigt has stressed that his party is “the strongest in the political centre” and that logic suggests that it should lead the next governing coalition. In this case, the possible combinations are few. Without the Greens, who are outside the regional parliament, and taking into account the cordon sanitaire around the ultras, only an alliance of the CDU with the Social Democrats, Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW and Die Linke have a majority.

AfD stormed into the German parliament after the September 2017 elections with 12.6%. Born in 2013 as a party that opposed Brussels’ bailouts and championed Euroscepticism, it shifted its slogans towards rejecting immigration during the 2015 refugee crisis. With the pandemic, it refocused its populism against restrictions, which it called anti-democratic, and allied itself with deniers and conspiracy theorists to opp
ose the government, first that of Angela Merkel and then that of Olaf Scholz.

Björn Höcke, considered the party’s shadow leader, is the representative of its most radical, xenophobic and ultra-nationalist wing. This 52-year-old former high school history teacher has been at the centre of controversy for years for his revisionist statements, such as when he described the monument that pays tribute to the victims of the Holocaust in central Berlin as a “memorial of shame.” In recent months he has been condemned twice for using a Nazi slogan (All for Germany) in his public appearances.

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