Politics Memo after Berlin - AfD stronger than ever in Germany

Ever since German reunification in 1990, the East has voted differently to the West. Between the Baltic Sea and the Ore Mountains, citizens' party loyalty is less pronounced, which is also reflected in lower membership figures. The protest votes of those who felt economically and socially left behind as "losers of unification" often went to parties on the fringes of the political spectrum.

While it was initially the Left Party, which emerged from the GDR state party SED, that united the protest vote and even provided the prime minister in Thuringia in the past ten years - Bodo Ramelow - it has now finally been overtaken by the far-right AfD. In Thuringia, the party led by right-wing extremist Björn Höcke became the strongest force in the state elections on Sunday for the first time. It also cracked the 30 percent mark in neighboring Saxony.

But it wasn't just the right-wing populists who popped the champagne corks on Sunday. The left-wing populist alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), which was only founded at the turn of the year, achieved double-digit results in both Saxony and Thuringia. It is a split-off from the Left Party under the leadership of Wagenknecht, a member of the Bundestag. In Saxony, the Left Party had to tremble about re-entering the state parliament.

Migration issue in first place

For the Berlin "traffic light" coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Sunday's results, which had been predicted quite well by opinion pollsters, were the expected warning sign one year before the next general election. There are many reasons for this, but the issue of migration is likely to be at the top of the list. Housing immigrants is overburdening municipalities and districts. Acts of violence such as the recent one in Solingen, where a rejected asylum seeker from Syria who was actually obliged to leave the country murdered three people and injured eight others, have further inflamed the mood.

"Do we need a fundamentally different asylum and refugee policy so that fewer people come to us?" - This question was answered in the affirmative by 81% of respondents in Saxony and Thuringia in an infratest dimap survey published by ARD on the evening of the election. 36% of AfD voters told the institute that the issue of immigration played the biggest role in their decision to vote. 35 percent mentioned crime and internal security.

Respondents said that the AfD in Saxony was competent in asylum and refugee policy, the fight against crime, the representation of East German interests and policy towards Ukraine and Russia. When it comes to Russia, the right-wing AfD and the left-wing BSW meet: both are against further arms deliveries to Ukraine. This strikes a chord with many East Germans, who blame the West for at least part of the war in Ukraine and believe that the sanctions against Russia are more damaging to their own economy than the Russian economy. Unlike the Left Party, from which it emerged, the BSW also advocates a reduction in immigration, which is probably one of the reasons for its strong performance in its first state elections.

Scholz not a good chancellor for the majority

The East Berlin theater director Frank Castorf recently described the AfD as "the revenge of the East". However, the three "traffic light" parties had already performed poorly across Germany in the European elections in June with a modest 31%. In Saxony and Thuringia, they now achieved less than half that figure. According to infratest dimap, only 17% of respondents in Saxony and Thuringia thought that Olaf Scholz was a good chancellor, while 74% thought that he was not fulfilling his leadership responsibilities as chancellor.

The fact that the head of government called for "large-scale deportations" in an interview last fall may have contributed to this, but the actual number of deportations in 2024 has only increased very slowly. Scholz had created an "expectations trap" with his announcement, according to political scientist Hans Vorländer a few days before the election. Added to this are the constant squabbles between the "traffic light" partners. "According to infratest dimap, 58% of Thuringians and Saxons agreed with this statement: "The state election is a good opportunity to teach the governing parties a lesson.

Even as the strongest party in Thuringia, the AfD is likely to remain in opposition, as no other party wants to work with it and the state parliament in Erfurt will not elect AfD leader Björn Höcke as state premier. Things will get exciting again in eastern Germany in three weeks' time - on September 22 - when another state election is due, this time in the federal state of Brandenburg.

The AfD is also ahead in the polls there. It is a very important election for the SPD, as it is the state premier there, Dietmar Woidke, who is fighting for re-election. Scholz has his parliamentary constituency in the state capital of Potsdam. However, campaign appearances by the unpopular chancellor are expressly not desired by the comrades in Brandenburg.

SDA