Voters in the German states of Thuringia and Saxony turned out in large numbers on Sunday against the parties that presently constitute Germany’s federal coalition government: the Social Democratic Party, the Free Democratic Party and the Greens, giving most of their votes to the opposition Christian Democrat Union but also to anti-establishment parties Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the newly established Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW). Though these are regional elections, they reveal much about the future of German stability and thus European stability.
In some ways, the results should not be surprising. Like the rest of Europe, Germany is facing the daunting economic challenge of balancing unemployment and inflation. The ruling coalition agreed in July to spur economic growth beyond 1 percent through tax breaks for companies in research and development, perks for pensioners who combine their pension with a job, and incentives for the long-term unemployed to find work. (Although this is hardly the first time it has struggled to solve serious economic problems.)
All the while, changes in foreign policy were slowly forming. The malaise of the 2010s, an immigration crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic called into question the reliability of supply chains over which Berlin has little control. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fundamentally challenged German conceptions of how the world worked. Thus came the Zeitenwende, a dramatic policy shift conceived by Chancellor Olaf Scholz that essentially pledged to upgrade German defense capabilities.
Though Zeitenwende may seem sensible in light of the invasion of Ukraine, it comes amid growing identitarianism, nationalism and populism throughout Europe brought on by socio-economic problems. Frustratingly for some political observers, these ideological divides no longer align neatly with traditional left and right political camps. For example, the AfD is generally considered far-right for its anti-immigration advocacy. It was founded in 2013 and has grown in popularity since the first migration crisis. Its political platform includes abolishing so-called “gender ideology,” which essentially translates into cutting down “quota regulations” for women in politics, and uncoupling access to services based on, say, ethnicity. Yet it has also offered its full support to farmers protesting against proposed subsidy cuts – hardly a traditional right-wing position. Most tellingly, the AfD has proffered no “traditional” or “conservative” economic policy to tackle the sources of these issues, preferring instead to campaign on the explosivity of the issues themselves.
The AfD isn’t unique in this regard, of course, and its newly established “far-left” counterpart, the BSW, is executing this approach even more effectively. While the AfD increased its share of the electorate in Thuringia and Saxony to one-third, the BSW has already reached 10 percent in both states. The BSW managed to accomplish in just one year what took the AfD roughly half a decade. Its success is driven in part by Sahra Wagenknecht, the leader of the left-wing, post-communist Die Linke party, the successor to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, which governed East Germany during the Cold War. Some of its positions – being tough on migration, increasing deportations of rejected asylum seekers and establishing greater controls at Germany’s borders – are not so different from the AfD’s. However, one area in which the two parties do differ is social welfare: The AfD wants to limit benefits, and the BSW wants to maintain or expand some. But for both, this has not been a key focus of their political campaigns. In some ways, they differ more in tone and rhetoric than in substance.
Particularly interesting is how each party talked about the war in Ukraine. Support for weapons for Ukraine is generally lower in eastern Germany, where residents think of Russia more as a friend than a foe. Some there harken back to the Soviet era, when everyone had a job and housing. To them, the switch to a market economy led to the replacement of a stable, sustainable system with a competitive, stressful and painful lifestyle. The BSW has capitalized on these sentiments in eastern Germany, approaching the topic of the war head-on as the AfD focuses more on blaming NATO and the United States. The AfD also criticizes the government’s military aid to Ukraine while supporting negotiations and, eventually, full rapprochement with Moscow.
The BSW, meanwhile, advocates the integration of Russia into a new European security architecture, as Wagenknecht herself opposes the stationing of U.S. long-range weapons in Germany – a plan supported by the entire ruling coalition as well as the biggest opposition party, the conservative Christian Democrats. And considering the BSW’s exceptional growth in popularity, it is unlikely Wagenknecht will abandon her position. More, in any talks about forming a regional government, the topic will be an important demand to the other parties – and this may trigger some important challenges to the German national stance on the matter, especially since 2025 will see national parliamentary elections.
For decades, German politics has been dominated by coalition-building. So as the AfD grew more popular over the past decade, coalitions have been formed to exclude it. This was easy when ideological divides were more clear-cut, the economy was humming, and the AfD was the only anti-establishment game in town. Because it’s much easier to compromise on traditional, pragmatic issues than on ideology, the rise of multiple fringe parties could challenge mainstream parties and thus German stability itself. The BSW, after all, has said it will never enter into coalition with the AfD. The political fallout in Thuringia and Saxony is important if only to understand how deep political instability could get over the coming years. The ensuing talks will also provide a sense of whether the BSW will have any influence on German foreign policy going forward.
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