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The early autumn has become a time of foreboding and angst in German politics. In the eastern states that have become strongholds for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, it has regularly made headline-grabbing advances in September elections. Only the refusal of mainstream politicians to form coalitions with one of Europe’s most extreme movements has kept it out of power.
This year, the lights are flashing red. Next weekend, when voters in Saxony-Anhalt cast their ballots, the signs are that the traditional firewall may not be enough. In polling, the AfD is currently scoring above 40% in the state, which could win it enough seats to govern on its own. Compared with the last election in 2021, its support has doubled; backing for the closest challenger, the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has tumbled by almost 15%.
Those are startling and alarming figures. Since the second world war, none of Germany’s 16 Länder have been governed by the far right, and in office the AfD would exercise substantial powers over education, policing and culture. The Saxony-Anhalt party – which was classified as a threat to democracy by the security services – has pledged to fully exploit them. The party’s manifesto proposes policies such as the segregation of refugee children in separate schools (in violation of EU law), a nationalist curriculum that would shift the focus away from the Nazi period, and the championing of the “normal family” over “sexual deviations and non-reproductive lifestyles”.
Whatever the outcome next weekend, the AfD’s sustained lead in national polls suggests a reckoning is at hand for mainstream parties. Postwar politics in Germany has, for obvious reasons, been founded on a horror of extreme nationalism and a focus on consensus and compromise. But more than one in four voters currently back a party that has discussed a programme of mass “remigration”, which could include passport-carrying citizens deemed to have a “non-German” background.
This stark reality has led to suggestions that the taboo on cooperation with the AfD should be dropped, on the basis that exposing the party to the practical realities of governing would reveal the emptiness of its populist promises. That would be a strategy born of desperation and one carrying great risks, not least for the minorities at the sharp end of the experiment. But there is little doubt that despite attempts to ape the far right’s draconian stance on immigration, the political approach being pursued by Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition government is not working.
As elsewhere in Europe, support for the far right is most concentrated in the ailing industrial regions that were once a source of pride and identity, as well as prosperity. Yet as the country suffers from the double whammy of Chinese competition and US protectionism, Mr Merz’s focus on tax cuts, welfare reform and raising the retirement age is signally failing to address the crisis afflicting Europe’s largest economy.
While campaigning in 2018 to become leader of the CDU, the chancellor pledged to halve the AfD’s vote. Support for it has instead doubled. Mr Merz’s own popularity ratings are at a record low for any chancellor, while his coalition partner, the Social Democratic party, is faring just as badly in the polls. A vote next weekend freighted with ominous symbolism will send yet another message to a failing political class that it needs to rethink its priorities.
