BERLIN (AP) — The far-right Alternative for Germany could become the strongest party for the first time in two regional elections on Sunday in eastern Germany, while a party founded months ago by a prominent leftist is also hoping to turn things around as the national government has spiralled into deep unpopularity.
Germany’s main conservative opposition party hopes to retain Alternative for Germany In Saxony and Thuringia, home to 4.1 million and 2.1 million people respectively, the outlook is bleak for the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition, whose constant infighting has compounded economic stagnation and other problems that discourage voters.
An election campaign poster of the far-right Alternative for Germany, AfD, party showing the front-runner for Thuringia, Bjoern Hoecke, and the slogans “The East does it” and “Almost banned” is displayed on a street in Jena, Germany, August 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
A victory for the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, would send a strong signal to the party, just over a year before the next national elections The country is expected to be re-elected. But it would most likely need a coalition partner to govern, and it is highly unlikely that anyone else would agree to put it in power. Even so, its strength could make the formation of new state governments extremely difficult.
Trouble in Berlin
High marks for AfD and new Sahra Wagenknecht Allianceboth at their height in formerly communist eastern Germany, were fueled in part by discontent with the national government. Scholz’s alliance argued throughout the campaign the need to European Parliament elections in June and achieved disappointing results. Internal hostilities intensified during a summer plagued by disagreements over the Budget 2025.
Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats, the environmentalist Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats were already weak in both states, even though the top two parties are minority partners in both outgoing regional governments. They now risk falling below the 5% threshold needed to remain in the state legislatures.
More than 50 countries will go to the polls in 2024
Scholz recently said that “gun smoke from the battlefield” was obscuring the successes of his government, made up of uncertain allies, which has made it its mission to modernize Germany. Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said the government was not a “self-help group.” One of the Greens’ national leaders, Omid Nouripour, described the coalition as a “transitional government.”
The main opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won the European Parliament elections. It has ruled Saxony since German reunification in 1990 and hopes that Governor Michael Kretschmer can lead it ahead of the AfD, as he did five years ago. In Thuringia, polls show it trailing the AfD, but it hopes to form a governing coalition.
Thuringia’s politics are particularly complicated because Left Party Governor Bodo Ramelow’s party has fallen into electoral irrelevance nationwide. Wagenknecht, long one of its best-known figures, left last year to form a new party that now outnumbers it.
Migration, war and peace
Election campaign posters of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, featuring lead candidate Mario Voigt and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance are displayed on a lamppost in Jena, Germany, August 13, 2024. Regional elections in Thuringia and Saxony are scheduled for Sunday, September 1, 2024, in eastern German states. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The AfD has exploited strong anti-immigration sentiment in the region, with a campaign poster in Thuringia promising “summer, sun, remigration” and depicting a plane with the “Deportation-Hansa” logo.
Alice Weidel, the national leader of the AfD, attacked both the ruling parties and the CDU, which previously ruled Germany under Angela Merkel — for their “uncontrolled mass immigration policy” following last week’s crisis knife attack in Solingen in which a suspected extremist A Syrian man is accused of killing three people.
Wagenknecht’s new party, known by its German acronym BSW, combines left-wing economic policies with an immigration-sceptical agenda. The CDU has also stepped up pressure on the national government to a tougher position on migration.
Germany’s position on Russia’s War in Ukraine is also a problem in these eastern states. Berlin is the second largest state in Ukraine arms supplier After the US, these arms deliveries are something that the AfD and the BSW oppose. An AfD poster combining the German and Russian flags declares that “Peace is everything!”
Wagenknecht also criticized a recent decision by the German government and the United States to begin deploying long range missiles in Germany in 2026. She said her party would only join state governments that have a “clear position in favor of diplomacy and against preparation for war.”
Who will govern with whom?
FILE – Opposition leader Friederich Merz delivers a speech during a debate on Germany’s budget crisis at the Bundestag in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The AfD has secured its first positions of mayor and departmental government Last year, the party had yet to join a state government. In June, national co-leader Tino Chrupalla said that “the sun of responsible government must rise for us in the east.”
This does not seem likely in Saxony and Thuringia, where no other party wants to join him in a coalition. intelligence agency The AfD sections in both states are officially monitored as “proven right-wing extremist” groups. Its leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, was sentenced to knowingly use a Nazi slogan at political events, but it is attractive.
Depending on the results of the ruling parties, the CDU could find itself looking for unlikely coalition partners. The party has long refused to ally with Ramelow’s Left Party, which emerged from the East German Communist Party, but has not ruled out working with Wagenknecht’s BSW.
CDU national leader Friedrich Merz told the RND media group that “we cannot work with” the AfD.
“That would kill the CDU,” he said.
