Alternative for Germany on track for first victory in regional elections

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Voters in the eastern German regions of Saxony and Thuringia went to the polls on Sunday, with the Alternative for Germany party on course for victory in at least one of the states, a result that would be a political earthquake.

Polls suggest the AfD could come first in Thuringia, the first time a far-right party has won a regional election in Germany’s post-war history. In Saxony, the party trails the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) by two percentage points.

Parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition are bracing for defeat as voters express frustration with a government many associate with high inflation, economic stagnation, rising energy costs and constant infighting.

The elections were dominated by the war in Ukraine. Both the AfD and the far-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) demanded an end to German military aid to Kiev and peace talks to end hostilities.

The campaign also showed that 34 years after German reunification, the majority of the population in the former communist east of the country is deeply disappointed with the major centrist parties and frustrated with the way Germany is governed.

A recent survey of voter sentiment in Thuringia by pollster Forsa showed the AfD at 30 percent, the center-right CDU at 22 percent, the BSW at 17 percent and the far-left Die Linke at 14 percent. Scholz’s Social Democrats are at 7 percent.

In Saxony, the CDU is polling at 33 percent, the AfD at 31, the BSW at 12, the Social Democrats at 7 and the Greens at 6, according to Forsa.

The AfD will not be able to form a government in Saxony or Thuringia, even if it wins both elections. No other party will cooperate with it, denying the AfD the parliamentary majority it needs to govern.

Founded 11 years ago by economists angry about eurozone bailouts, the AfD has transformed into a hardline, historically revisionist nationalist party fiercely opposed to immigration.

Germany’s domestic intelligence service has designated the party’s local Saxon and Thuringian branches as “far-right.” In Thuringia, the party is led by Björn Höcke, an ethno-nationalist who was recently fined €17,000 for using banned Nazi slogans in a speech to supporters.

However, it could be difficult to form viable coalitions without the AfD. For the CDU to govern in Thuringia, for example, it would have to team up with the BSW, an option that would be hard to swallow for many in the center-right party.

Wagenknecht, a former communist widely seen as a defender of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has made Ukraine policy a precondition for any coalition talks. He said ahead of the election that the BSW “would only participate in a regional government that takes a clear position in favor of diplomacy and against preparations for war, including at the national level.”

That sparked outrage within the CDU, which has always supported Ukraine and pressured the Scholz government, already the second largest provider of military aid to Kiev after the US, to supply even more weapons.

Höcke has taken a similar stance to Wagenknecht. In his campaign speeches, he said that the AfD was against Germany being “dragged into a war with Russia by a few crazy Western elites.”

The campaign was overshadowed by the August 23 terrorist attack in the western German city of Solingen, when a suspected IS operative and a Syrian fatally stabbed three people and wounded eight others.

Both the AfD and the BSW seized on the incident to claim that uncontrolled immigration had led to an increase in violent crime on German streets and to demand that asylum seekers who committed crimes be deported.

In Berlin, fears are growing that the governing parties — Scholz’s SPD, the Greens and the Liberals — could face elimination. Some polls suggest that all three parties could do so badly that they would fail to make it to the regional parliaments in both Saxony and Thuringia.

There is speculation that such a crushing defeat could lead to one or more coalition partners withdrawing from the government, leading to early elections.

But experts say such an outcome is unlikely. All three have such poor national scores that there is little incentive to engage voters in the next election scheduled for the fall of 2025.