For the first time since 1945, a far-right party won a regional election in Germany. The alternative for Germany clearly won in Thuringia, and finished second in Saxony. However, the AfD will probably not rule in any of the federal states, as the other parties are distancing themselves from it. “The result is a huge slap in the face for the governing parties, but I don’t expect the government to fall,” Kateřina Smejkalová, an expert from the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, said in an interview for Český rozhlas Plus.
Interview
Prague
15:34 September 2, 2024 Share on Facebook
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“In the case of Thuringia, it should be pointed out that with this result of almost 33 percent of the vote, the AfD won a blocking minority.” (illustrative photo) | Photo: Karina Hessland | Source: Reuters
Did the AfD win the election in Thuringia?
So it’s definitely a turning point. It wasn’t a complete surprise, because the AfD has been gaining ground in recent years basically everywhere in the east of Germany, and already in the pre-election polls, its victory was in short order.
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Listen to the entire interview with Germany expert Kateřina Smejkalova. Moderated by Lukáš Matoška
But along with some of the other phenomena that the election showed, such as the extraordinary success of the new group Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW). In Thuringia, for example, it received a far greater share of the vote than the parties of the Berlin government coalition. In this, these elections are certainly groundbreaking.
So did the election confirm that there is still a significant difference between the western and eastern parts of Germany?
Certainly. I think Sunday’s election marked the completion of some kind of redrawing of the political map in East Germany. As I said, it was already taking shape, but I would consider the election result to be the completion of this redrawing. On the one hand, the tremendous success of AfD, on the other hand, the tremendous success of the new BSW grouping.
Can you imagine any of these parties, whether the AfD or the BSW, both of which are arguably nationalist at their core, participating directly in regional governments, whether in Saxony or Thuringia?
So it is really quite unlikely for the AfD, because all the other parties maintain something they call a fire wall in Germany. This means that cooperation is excluded there.
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However, I think that in the case of Thuringia it is necessary to point out that with this result of almost 33 percent of the electoral votes, the AfD obtained a blocking minority. This means that although it is very likely that he will not rule, he will not have ministers and the like, but at the same time, in the case of some very important decisions, in which two-thirds of the members of the regional assembly are needed, he will be able to block this decision.
These include, for example, decisions about judges of the regional constitutional court, elections to the boards of the regional public media or, after all, the position of the president of the regional assembly, which is a position that traditionally belongs to the strongest party.
Here, then, the AfD should be entitled to this position, which in turn can greatly complicate the formation of a regional government, since it can only be formed at the moment when the new parliament is constituted. And that again depends on the function of the chairman.
Redraw the map
We probably have to keep in mind that in Thuringia and Saxony together about one seventh of the entire German population lives. Can we still say that Germans are beginning to move away from the political center?
So perhaps it is necessary to add to this that before long, in exactly three weeks, we will still have elections in Brandenburg, another East German country. And there the predictions are not so different.
The SPD will probably be more successful there than it was in Saxony and Thuringia. But the great success of the AfD, the first place by a margin, is expected there as well. This means that, in some form, the deviation certainly applies to all of Germany, and it certainly applies to East Germany. It’s something that’s really trending a lot right now.
I already talked about it when I said that it was a redrawing of the political map of East Germany. Here, in short, it appears that in the future the only and most important political parties in the East will probably be the AfD and in some form the BSW. Even Christian conservatives from the CDU still hold their position here.
But other parties partially even fall below the electoral threshold, for example the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) in Thuringia.
The Christian Democrats narrowly won in Saxony, with Alternative for Germany in second place. What does the result of the elections in these two federal states mean for the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, i.e. for the government led by a politician from the social democratic SPD?
It sure is a huge slap in the face. I have already hinted a bit that, for example, in Thuringia, the three parties of the Berlin coalition together will not come close to the results of the BSW and certainly not to the results of the AfD.
In Saxony and Thuringia, the state elections are over. According to forecasts, the AfD won, the government parties failed
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That means it’s a very negative report card for that Berlin government. It is certainly a sign that East German politics is becoming significantly detached from what is happening in political Berlin.
Political Berlin is shaped to a certain extent by West German politicians, the West German idea of politics. This is, after all, one of the reasons why East Germans are turning against these originally West German established parties as part of a kind of protest electoral behavior
A very concrete impact on the government is probably not expected. The parties were counting on failure to a certain extent, as the election surveys indicated the results. And at the same time, the next elections to the Bundestag take place almost exactly in a year.
This means that the enterprise of some adventure, such as the dissolution of the government and early elections, is probably no longer worth it. Of course, it will be interesting to see how the governing parties of the Berlin coalition will use the last year to perhaps turn the mood in East Germany in their favor.
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