Voters in two eastern German states will soon go to the polls in which the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party could win for the first time at local level and a new populist force on the left could gain ground.
The results of the elections in Saxony and Thuringia, due to be announced on Sunday evening, are expected to be disastrous for the three ruling parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre-left coalition government in Berlin, one year before Germany's next general election.
Many eastern voters say they are increasingly disillusioned with mainstream politics more than three decades after the country was reunited, and the lingering effects of structural decline, population decline and sluggish economic growth have reinforced their sense that they remain second-class citizens.
“The AfD has built a core base [in the east] “Increasingly, people are voting based on their beliefs and not just on dissatisfaction with other parties,” said Andre Brodtz, a political scientist at the University of Erfurt in Thuringia.
The anti-immigration, anti-Islam AfD party spent the final week of the campaign repeating the message that the government was “abandoning” its people, while stoking shock and anger over a mass stabbing attack allegedly carried out by a Syrian asylum seeker in the western city of Solingen.
Polls suggest the party, whose state chapters in Saxony and Thuringia have been labelled right-wing extremist by security authorities, could come out on top in those states as well as in Brandenburg, a rural state around Berlin which will vote on Sept. 22.
The 11-year-old AfD won mayoral and local government offices for the first time last year but is not in state government. The rest of the Democrats have vowed to maintain a “bulwark of opposition” to working with the AfD and to prevent it from taking power.
Thuringia's co-leader, Bjorn Höcke, has repeatedly used banned Nazi slogans at rallies and called for a “transformation” of Germany's culture of Holocaust remembrance and redemption.
He is seeking a blocking minority of one-third of the votes in Thuringia. The Nazis gained power in German state governments for the first time. in 1930, and three years later consolidated their control in Berlin.
At a rally in Erfurt a few days before the election, Hocke told a cheering crowd that only he and the AfD stood in the way of a “cartel party” that sought to “replace the German people” with a multicultural society under a totalitarian dictatorship.
The coalition of Olaf Scholz's centre-left Social Democrats, the green Greens and the liberal Free Democrats is already in a weak position, with the parties Reasons to Fear Sunday's election night results.
Torn by ideological differences and personal rivalriesBut the government has repeatedly failed in recent months to deliver key policy initiatives, such as revitalizing the flagging economy and getting more electric cars on German roads. Green party co-leader Omid Nouripour recently described Berlin's coalition government as a “caretaker government” after 16 years in power under Chancellor Angela Merkel.
If the ruling party fails to clear the 5% hurdle needed to win seats in both states on Sunday – which opinion polls suggest is likely – it could find it extremely difficult to assemble a coalition government.
The left-wing but socially conservative Zahra Wagenknecht Union (BSW), named for its firebrand leader and with its calls for higher taxes on the wealthy, tougher treatment of immigrants and refugees and an end to military aid to Ukraine, has deep resonance in the former Communist east and could be a key player in any coalition talks.
In Saxony, support stands at around 11%, and in Thuringia at around 17%.
Brodoz described his party's rise as a “game changer”, highlighting its rejection of established parties and offering disaffected easterners an alternative to the AfD which is seen as too extreme.
Wagenknecht, who is already gearing up for federal elections in 2025, has threatened to raise the cost of joining any coalition and has hit out at the recent US decision to begin deploying Russian missiles, while calling for “diplomacy” towards Russia. Long-range missiles In Germany, from 2026.
The conservative opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which leads national opinion polls, could narrowly win in Saxony, as it did five years ago, giving a boost to its leader, Friedrich Merz, who is seeking to challenge Scholz in the general election.
It could become the second-largest party in Thuringia after the AfD and then form an ideologically awkward coalition government with smaller parties including Wagenknecht.
Merz has vowed that the CDU would never work with extremists, but in the years since Merkel came to power he has steadily moved the party to the right, particularly in its rhetoric on immigration.
