Where is Germany Heading Politically?

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

The east German states of Saxony and Thuringia elected new state parliaments in September and the Rubicon was crossed in German domestic politics. They showcased the rise of two anti-establishment parties. It was the first time a party of the right finished first in a state election in post-1945 Germany.

In Thuringia, the Alternative fur Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, or AfD) came first, with 32.8 per cent of the vote, winning 32 of the 88 assembly seats. The newly formed populist Bundnis Sahra Wagenknecht (Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW) won 15.8 per cent, good for 15 seats.

In Saxony, the AfD came second, with 30.6 per cent and 40 of the legislature’s 120 seats, just slightly behind the first-place Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands (Christian Democrats, or CDU), at 31.9 per cent and 41 seats. The BSW gained 11.8 per cent, good for 15 seats.

In 1990 Saxony and Thuringia re-entered German history as federal states of a reunited German republic. Just over thirty years later, though small – they have a combined population of just six million -- they have become ground zero for the rise of anti-establishment parties.

The AfD harkens back to a nationalist right that was totally delegitimised by the Second World War and excluded in its aftermath. Founded in 2013, it is defined by its Eurosceptic, nationalist and anti-immigration policies, combined with neo-liberal tendencies on economic matters.

But it was recently joined by the BSW, a left-wing but anti-immigrant and anti-Atlanticist party recruiting even more German voters to the idea of an “alternative” kind of Germany.

Well over 40 per cent of Saxon and Thuringian voters opted for one of the two options. East Germans are voting for parties that to most west Germans remain anathema. In both states, two of the parties of the federal coalition government did not even reach a combined 10 per cent share of the vote. The only centrist survivor is the conservative CDU, which narrowly held onto first place in Saxony and second in Thuringia.

The AfD leader in Thuringia, Bjorn Hocke, celebrated his party’s “historic victory.” But the AfD branches in both Saxony and Thuringia have come under official surveillance as extremist groups. Hocke himself has twice been found guilty by a German court of purposely employing Nazi rhetoric.

The BSW, founded in January, is a populist party that blends left-leaning economic policies with anti-migration and pro-Russian foreign policy initiatives. In both Saxony and Thuringia, the party, created by Sahra Wagenknecht, the former parliamentary leader of Die Linke (Left Party), also ended up well ahead of the parties that make up Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s federal coalition government. Die Linke, which headed the state government in Thuringia until the election, is the successor to the Communists that once led the East German dictatorship.

BSW and AfD policies overlap in several areas. Both are in favor of limiting migration, increasing deportations of rejected asylum-seekers and creating more controls at Germany’s borders. Hocke denounced the mainstream “cartel parties” who are working to “replace the German people” with a multicultural society.

Where they differ is on issues like social welfare: The AfD wants to limit benefits, and the BSW wants to maintain or expand some. But both strive for a strong, authoritarian state that will contain, patronise and homogenise society.

Wagenknecht has been thrust into the limelight as a core player advocating a distinctive brand of “left conservatism.” She shares with many Western populists a compelling rejection of the dying neoliberal order and all that it represents today: censorship, open borders, transgenderism, and public health authoritarianism. But crucially, she has managed to maintain this platform while continuing to win voters from the left.

One of the most-read German historians today, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk, considers the BSW and the AfD “siblings in spirit.” He calls the former “Putinists” and the latter “fascists.”

For Ursula Munch, director of the Tutzing Academy for Political Education, an independent institute, the BSW simply represents yet another threat to the traditional parties. “The other parties are being put through the wringer by both the BSW and the AfD, she told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Munch thinks immigration remains the key issue for German voters, and she believes that the BSW has successfully managed to present itself to voters as a non-extremist alternative to the AfD. “It avoids racist rhetoric and has relatively decent main candidates, who have local political experience and federal political experience.”

The BSW also attracts voters who are skeptical about Germany’s support for Ukraine -- another position that it shares with the AfD. Wagenknecht has suggested Vladimir Putin was no more of a warmonger than the United States.

Ahead of the election, some thought Wagenknecht’s new party would eat into the AfD’s vote share. Instead, it managed to secure double-digit results in both states by taking votes from mainstream parties. The BSW has turned out to be a party normalising anti-democratic narratives.

The growing political disaffection that has led to this situation has been simmering for some time. Voters in the east of the country feel especially misunderstood and looked down upon by politicians and the media.

Both populist parties are hostile to a status quo which must be reversed if the legacy parties want to avoid further decline. A united Germany no longer seems so united.