East Germans Lean Toward Extremes in State Elections

 

East Germans Lean Toward Extremes in State Elections

 

The Alternative for Germany party was on course to win in Thuringia, according to projections, in what was seen as a worrying sign of the health of German democracy.

 

By Steven Erlanger and Christopher F. Schuetze

Steven Erlanger reported from Berlin, and Christopher F. Schuetze from Erfurt, Germany.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/01/world/europe/east-german-state-elections-saxony-thuringia.html

Sept. 1, 2024

Updated 2:52 p.m. ET

 

The far-right Alternative for Germany was on course on Sunday to become the strongest party in a state election for the first time, in Thuringia, and it was running a close second to mainstream conservatives in a second state, Saxony, according to projections based on early results.

 

A new party rooted in the extreme left, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, was running third in both states. But neither party was expected to be able to run either state’s government after coalition negotiations that could take weeks.

 

The elections in the two states in the former East Germany were being closely watched in Berlin as a measure of the rising strength of extremist parties, left and right, as well as of the weakening position of the centrist parties that make up the current federal coalition. It was the first time since the Nazi era that a far-right party had won a state election.

 

The returns were seen as a worrying indicator of the health and future of German democracy, and they were likely to intensify a quandary over whether and how mainstream parties can isolate extremists and keep them from entering government.

 

All parties have said they would shun the Alternative for Germany, known as the AfD, which they consider as dangerous to democracy. That could leave the Christian Democratic Union, which may end up running both state governments, as the main beneficiary of the vote among traditional mainstream parties.

 

While the results may augur well for the Christian Democrats for the next federal elections, scheduled for September 2025, they are certain to add to the troubles of the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition, which performed badly.

 

“This is a historic success for us,” Alice Weidel, a national leader of the AfD, told the public broadcaster ARD. She described the result as a “requiem” for the Berlin government.

 

Projections based on early results put the AfD first in Thuringia at 31.2 percent and a close second in Saxony, at 30.4 percent. They put the Christian Democratic Union, the main opposition party nationally, first in Saxony at nearly 31.6 percent and second in Thuringia, at 24.5 percent. The BSW was running third, with 15.7 percent in Thuringia and 12 percent in Saxony.

 

Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats should make the 5 percent threshold to enter the Parliament in both states, getting 6.8 percent in Thuringia and 8.2 percent in Saxony. The Greens are expected to barely make the threshold in Saxony, but fall short in Thuringia. The Free Democrats were polling in both states under 1.5 percent.

 

And the party Die Linke, or The Left, the inheritor of the old Communist Party, was getting around 12.4 percent in Thuringia, where its current leader, Bodo Ramelow, is the prime minister, but only 4 percent in Saxony.

 

Final official results will not be available until Monday morning. But what seemed clear already was that many East German voters rewarded the parties on the far left and far right and punished the ruling coalition in Berlin, underlining the continuing differences between the two parts of Germany so many years after unification.

 

Turnout in both states was 73.5 percent of eligible voters, a sharp increase from 2019, which was 64.9 in Thuringia and 66.5 in Saxony.

 

Though on the far left, BSW holds many of the same positions as the AfD, like tough controls on immigration and an end to German military support for Ukraine, but it does not have the same stigma.

 

Even as the AfD attracted a significant number of votes, its regional branches in Saxony and Thuringia have been classified by regional domestic intelligence agencies as “confirmed extremist” groups based on ethnically tinged anti-migrant positions, Islamophobia and defamation of state institutions and government officials.

 

On a national level, the authorities have classified the AfD’s youth wing as “confirmed extremist,” and the main AfD as a “suspected extremist” group.

 

Those designations allow intelligence surveillance of the party and have led to mounting calls for a ban. But they did not stop voters in Thuringia and Saxony from voting for the party in droves. Many fear that a ban, or even a coalition that keeps the AfD from power, will only add to the sense of disenfranchisement among the party’s backers and increase its support.

 

In Thuringia, where the AfD ran strongest, Die Linke may also be the kingmaker in a very divided Parliament, and may end up choosing to back either the Christian Democrats or the BSW.

 

In Saxony, the incumbent state prime minister, Michael Kretschmer of the Christian Democrats, may retain office in a coalition with the BSW.

 

But if the Christian Democrats must turn to the far-left BSW for a coalition partner, they may find these negotiations awkward because Ms. Wagenknecht, who is not running for office on the state level, has insisted that any coalition partner accept her position on Ukraine, calling for an end to German aid to Kyiv and rapid negotiations to try to end the war.

 

The Christian Democrats have been openly supportive of Ukraine in its defense against Russia, but they are likely to be flexible on the state level, which has no real influence over foreign policy.

 

In Dresden Sunday, Mr. Kretschmer, the Christian Democrat, told supporters that he knew “how disappointed people are in what is happening in Berlin,” but that “people trusted us here in Saxony. They didn’t cast a protest vote.”

 

Both Mr. Scholz and the Christian Democrats have recently taken a harsher stance toward illegal immigration and urged a toughening of asylum laws and the faster deportation of those who do not qualify for asylum — major issues for both the AfD and the BSW.

 

That shift was accelerated by a knife attack in the western city of Solingen on Aug. 23, when prosecutors say a Syrian refugee killed three bystanders at a “festival of diversity.” Both the AfD and the BSW immediately leaped on the killings to use as part of their campaigns.

 

Despite the immediate focus on vote totals, coalition negotiations are expected to take weeks.

 

Still, whatever governments emerge — and in a third state election in nearby Brandenburg on Sept. 22 — they will have significant powers over domestic matters, judicial appointments, culture, education, universities and the police.

 

The AfD could, especially in cooperation with other parties, reach the parliamentary threshold needed to block certain decisions, like the appointment of judges and amendments to the state Constitution.

 

Each state also has its own intelligence services, and there may be concern if Ms. Wagenknecht’s party, which has positions on foreign policy that are close to Russia’s, gets into power even as a junior coalition member.

 

If the AfD should somehow form a government, that would create an immediate constitutional crisis because the party has already been labeled “right-wing extremist” by the federal intelligence agencies and the courts.

 

While support for both the AfD and the BSW tends to be twice as high in East Germany as in the more populous West, both parties are making inroads. Since 2017, when the AfD entered the German Bundestag, it now has representatives in 14 of Germany’s 16 state legislatures, plus the European Parliament in Brussels.

 

In June 2024, in the European elections, it finished second nationally, with 15.9 percent of the vote. So the AfD is not going away, and the risk is that the more its voters feel shut out of real power by the refusal of other parties to bring it into coalition, the more support it could get.

 

Steven Erlanger is the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe and is based in Berlin. He has reported from over 120 countries, including Thailand, France, Israel, Germany and the former Soviet Union. More about Steven Erlanger

 

Christopher F. Schuetze is a reporter for The Times based in Berlin, covering politics, society and culture in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. More about Christopher F. Schuetze