Germany Returning to East German Politics

The election returns in Saxony-Anhalt mark a turning point in German politics. For the first time since the Federal Republic was founded in 1949, a far-right party has won a state election – and by a wide margin.

Initial projections show the Alternative for Germany (AfD) to have more than doubled its vote from 2021, when the eastern state last held an election. Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) lost half its supporters.

As noted by Markus Ziener, PhD in political science, professor of journalism and head of the master's degree program at Media University Berlin, voters in Saxony-Anhalt have shattered the post-war status quo, proving that the traditional democratic guardrails can no longer contain radical forces.

Saxony-Anhalt accounts for just 1.7 million voters of Germany’s roughly 83 million inhabitants. The vote reflects a deep-seated loss of trust in mainstream parties across eastern Germany whose geographic features and also persistent institutional distrust and thin social networks have given the far right room to grow.

In many communities, the AfD has quietly stepped into a role once held by traditional center-right and center-left parties. AfD representatives are present at local events, tap into daily grievances, and present themselves as the only force really focused on ordinary citizens’ concerns.

In the meanwhile, the AfD campaigns openly to end military aid to Ukraine and reopen economic and energy ties with Russia. The massive win hands the party a far larger platform to press Berlin on that posture.

Washington is pushing European allies to shoulder a greater burden for their own defense and for supporting Ukraine – precisely as a party built on sovereign isolationism, hostility toward NATO, and reconciliation with the Russia has first won a German state outright.

The AfD’s platform sits in direct tension with the security posture Merz has been trying to build.

Yet few in Berlin seem to realize that the German political center’s ability to fully exclude the far right from power is finally a thing of the past.

More upheaval may be just around the corner. Key elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, another state in the east, and Berlin are forthcoming on September 20 already.

The momentum that the AfD gathered in Saxony-Anhalt could mainstream eastern German politics, formerly considered peripheral, nationwide. The GDR, that ceased to exist more than a third of a century ago, would remind German voters of itself anew.

Original publication: https://www.gmfus.org/news/threshold-crossed-saxony-anhalt