How to
watch the eastern German elections like a pro
The far
right and far left are expected to surge in Sunday’s state elections.
September 1,
2024 12:15 pm CET
By Nette
Nöstlinger
BERLIN —
Populist parties on the far-right and far-left ends of the political spectrum
are expected to surge in regional elections to be held in eastern Germany this
Sunday. If the current forecasts are borne out, the result on Sunday will send
political shockwaves across Germany and illustrate the degree to which voters
in the east of the country are rebelling against mainstream political parties.
Here’s
everything you need to know about the coming votes— and what it all means for
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s increasingly enervated three-party coalition
government.
Where and
when are the votes taking place?
Voters are
headed to the polls this Sunday in two eastern German states — Saxony and
Thuringia — to elect their state parliamentarians. Voters in a third eastern
state, Brandenburg, will go to polls on Sept. 22.
What time
will the results come in?
First
projections for Thuringia and Saxony, based on exit polls, are expected on
Sunday evening at 6 p.m. Shortly after, the first projections based on the
early vote count will be released. The final results are expected to become
clear over the course of the night.
Who is
likely to win?
In
Thuringia, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party looks set for a
first-place finish, now polling at just below 30 percent. That is despite the
fact that the party is led by Björn Höcke, considered one of the most extreme
politicians in the party and someone who has twice been found guilty by a
German court of purposely employing Nazi rhetoric.
In Saxony,
polls show the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) holding a slight
lead over the AfD, but the race is still considered a toss-up.
Polls also
suggest a new populist-left party founded by the leftist icon Sahra Wagenknecht
will finish third in both Thuringia and Saxony — a remarkable result for a
party founded only months ago — potentially putting the party in a kingmaker
role when it comes to forming coalition governments.
Why are the
stakes so high?
The rise of
radical parties in eastern Germany will be seen as an unmistakable rebuke of
Germany’s mainstream parties — and in particular German Chancellor Olaf
Scholz’s left-leaning, tripartite coalition government.
All three
parties in Scholz’s coalition — the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD),
the fiscally conservative Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens — are
struggling to meet the 5-percent threshold needed to make it into the state
parliaments. Should these parties fail to win a significant number of seats, it
will prove a further embarrassment for an already-weak coalition struggling to
stay intact.
In a bid to
reverse its political fortunes just ahead of the election, Scholz’s government
has announced a raft of tougher migration measures — showing how the AfD’s rise
on an anti-immigration message has shaken the country’s political
establishment.
Because all
other parties have vowed not to form coalitions with the AfD, it’s unlikely the
party will win real governing power, despite the far-right surge. But the fact
that a party that mainstream political leaders warn is extremist, even Nazi, is
gaining ground is likely to set alarm bells ringing across the country. The
result is also likely to be seen as evidence of how Germany has failed to
politically integrate the former East Germany following the fall of the Berlin
Wall.
One person
who is likely to be celebrating the result on Sunday is Russian President
Vladimir Putin. The rise of Russia-friendly parties in Germany’s East gives
Putin, a former KGB spy based in Dresden during the Cold War, a foothold in
German politics.
The rise of
radical parties in eastern Germany will be seen as an unmistakable rebuke of
Germany’s mainstream parties. |
What happens
after?
Given the
splintered political landscape, coalition formation in the aftermath of the
elections is expected to be highly complicated.
Sahra
Wagenknecht’s alliance and the center-right CDU may be miles apart on many
policy issues, but they may be forced to govern together in order to prevent
the AfD from taking part in the state governments.
If the AfD
manages to win over a third of seats in state parliaments, it would give the
party power to block votes requiring a two-thirds majority. That could make
passing certain laws and appointing judges extremely difficult.
Does it
matter for the next German national election?
The
conservative CDU currently has a wide lead in national polls. Barring a big
shift, it’s likely then that the party will emerge victorious when Germans vote
in their next national election in September of 2025.
But given
the weakness of other mainstream parties currently in Germany’s governing
coalition and the rise of the far left and far right, it’s unclear which
parties the CDU will be able to form a coalition with. On the national level,
the AfD is currently polling as the country’s second-biggest force with 18
percent.
Following
the state elections in the east, both Wagenknecht and the AfD hope to expand
their influence across the country.
Should they
be successful, the results in the east may be a harbinger of things to come.
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