Björn Höcke, party and parliamentary group leader of the AfD in Thuringia and top candidate, leaves the AfD election party in Erfurt, Germany, Monday Sept. 2, 2024.Daniel Vogl/The Associated Press
A far-right party won a German state election for the first time in the country’s postwar history on Sunday, illustrating voters’ growing rejection of mainstream political parties and signalling a turn toward anti-immigrant, nationalist views.
Alternative for Germany, or AfD, a far-right party whose steady rise throughout the country has stoked fears of a resurgence in political extremism, earned a 32.8 per cent showing in Thuringia. And it came a close second, at 30.6 per cent, behind the mainstream conservative Christian Democrats in neighbouring Saxony.
Both states, the only two that held elections on Sunday, are located in the former East Germany, a region still marked by its communist past and subsequent economic struggles.
Although AfD was captured the greatest number of seats in Thuringia, it’s unlikely that it will be able to form government there as the other parties have vowed not to work with it. As a result of Germany’s election system, a party must win 50 per cent of the vote to form government, or form a coalition with other parties to make up a majority. Minority governments can occur but are very rare.
Yet the elections are an important barometer for the federal election next year. The results show a clear rejection of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his centre-left-led government, with each of the three coalition parties earning less than 10 per cent of the vote in both states.
Despite the overall win in Thuringia, AfD’s state leader, Björn Höcke, lost his constituency vote to an opponent from the country’s mainstream conservative party. Depending on the total number of seats the party wins, this means that he may lose his current seat in the state legislature, a blow to the party.
Mr. Höcke, a 52-year-old former history teacher, is widely considered to be a powerful influence on the party’s drift to the right. He has been convicted and fined twice by German courts for using Nazi-era slogans in campaign speeches.
The Christian Democratic Union came second in Thuringia with about a quarter of votes, and in Saxony it maintained a close lead ahead of AfD, with around a third of votes.
The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) a new populist party on the left, earned the third-most votes in both states, despite being only a few months old. BSW was created this year by former communist and Left Party lawmaker Sahra Wagenknecht, largely on the basis of a campaign for peace with Russia.
AfD’s opponents now face a difficult decision: either group together to block out AfD despite their ideological differences, further enraging voters who already feel sidelined by mainstream politics, or go against their own pledges not to work with AfD in the hopes of moderating its policy goals.
In Thuringia, the most likely option for a coalition has been suggested by pollsters to be between the Christian Democratic Union – the projected second-place winner; BSW – the projected third-place winner; and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). But projections showed that together, these parties would be missing one seat to form a majority.
Protestors demonstrate against the Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) after first exit polls in the Thuringia state elections in Erfurt, Germany, September 1, 2024.Christian Mang/Reuters
Hundreds of protesters gathered Sunday evening in Erfurt, Thuringia’s capital, to protest against AfD and accuse it of using fascist rhetoric.
AfD Thuringia uninvited all journalists to its election party that night, after facing appeals to the regional court by several large newspapers that had been excluded from the event. The court told AfD it had to grant entry to all journalists. Earlier in the week, an AfD Thuringia spokesperson told The Globe and Mail that the party had room for 50 journalists but had more than twice as many requests from the press to attend.
Thuringia and Saxony are home to a total of nearly five million voters and have been conservative strongholds since the country was reunified in 1990. In both former East German states, resentment toward NATO and the United States lingers. Two issues dominated the campaigns in the months leading up to the elections: Russia’s war against Ukraine, and illegal immigration.
AfD has strongly opposed Germany’s involvement in Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s invasion, arguing that sanctions on Russia are harming the German economy. The party is also calling for an immediate cut to support for asylum seekers and a scaling up of deportations.
Heated discussions about illegal immigration have flared in recent months, especially after a knife attack in Solingen, Germany, in late August, in which a Syrian asylum seeker killed three people.
AfD is also poised to win in the state of Brandenburg, set to vote on Sept. 22, according to polls.
- With a file from The Associated Press.