August 18, 2024 - 1:00pm
Earlier this month, I argued that Germany was heading for a political crisis. I’m not alone. Writing for the Financial Times, Constanze Stelzenmüller of the Brookings Institution also warns about the potential for “havoc“.
Next month, the regions of Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg elect state parliaments. All three are in the former East Germany, where the far-Right AfD is the biggest or second biggest party. In itself, that’s nothing new. The AfD has been disrupting German politics for years now; the German establishment hasn’t just survived, it has successfully excluded the far-Right from every regional (and federal) government. Even if the AfD vote reaches new records in September, the taboo will not be broken.
So what’s the problem then? Well, you can see it in polling for the Thuringian regional election:
Germany (Thuringia regional parliament), INSA poll:
AfD-ESN: 30% (+7)
CDU-EPP: 21% (-1)
BSW-NI: 19% (new)
LINKE-LEFT: 16% (-15)
SPD-S&D: 6% (-2)
GRÜNE-G/EFA: 3% (-2)
FDP-RE: 3% (-2)+/- vs. 2019 election
Fieldwork: 5-12 August 2024
Sample size: 1,000— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) August 13, 2024
As political analyst Henry Olsen points out, the combined vote for the non-mainstream parties is a whopping 65%. That’s made up of 30% for the AfD, 16% for the Left party (i.e. the former East German communists) and 19% for a new party called the BSW. The latter is named after, and led by, the charismatic Sahra Wagenknecht. It offers a boundary-crossing combination of socialist economics, anti-Nato foreign policy and populist stances on issues like immigration.
As for the three parties that make up Germany’s national government (the Social Democrats, the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats), the situation for them in the East is nothing short of disastrous. In Thuringia and Saxony, they’ll either have minor party status or be wiped out completely.
Among the mainstream parties, only the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) retain substantial support, but not enough to govern on their own. In the three regions up for grabs next month, they’ll need coalition partners. But who? The AfD is too far to the Right and the Left Party too far to the Left. So that just leaves the BSW, which is criticised by some as being too Left-wing and too Right-wing at the same time. And yet, given the numbers, it’s difficult to see how the CDU can avoid some sort of deal with Wagenknecht.
German politics is therefore entering uncharted territory. One of the great achievements of reunification was to create a remarkably similar party system on both sides of the old divide — despite the lingering presence of the rebranded communists.
However, the rise of the AfD and now the BSW has changed all of that. Across the East (the Berlin region excepted) a process of political de-unification is underway. With the centre-Left and liberal parties becoming increasingly irrelevant, stability in the eastern regions could soon depend on the untested and unlikely relationship between the CDU and BSW.
If the mismatched parties fail to cooperate, then the AfD is poised to gain from the resulting chaos. An alternative possibility is that the CDU and BSW do get along in regional government, which may have consequences for coalition options at the national level.
If you want to give EU or Nato officials nightmares, ask them to imagine Sahra Wagenknecht as Germany’s foreign secretary.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeIn Germany’s Northern neighbour, Denmark, the Social Democarats had a eureka moment when they realised that there was no need for them to have the millstone of being pro-immigration. Now Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW has got the message, too. The old political elite in Germany and elsewhere has dug itself so deep into the pro-immigration hole that it is terrified of what might be involved if they stop digging. Not even political oblivion was enough to make the Tories change their mind.
Populist parties are supposed to push mainstream parties toward the centre. If mainstream parties refuse to do that – by failing to drop policies like open borders and net zero – there will be political instability. In a healthy democracy, you have stasis opposed by antithesis to create synthesis. This is not happening so the result will be political instability – until synthesis is finally achieved or democracy is abandoned.
Jimmy, I am interested in your obsession with open borders, a policy that literally no-one in mainstream politics advocates for. Why do you constantly bring it up? It makes you sound like a lunatic. Did your wife leave you for an immigrant?
Well said. There are always tiny minorities on the fringes of the far-Left and Right, usually characterized by single-issue ideology that is politically untenable. When those fringes gather numbers they are the canary in the coalmine that the ruling majority has lost the plot. That mainstream politics has fallen out of the mainstream.
Both the ADF and BSW have problems with immigration. The ruling parties and their media friends dismiss this as simply racial intolerance. Sorry, but you don’t get polling numbers like these by suddenly tapping in to a hidden trove of ‘born again’ racists. The ‘fringe’ has made itself more palatable to an increasing number of politically and socially reasonable people tired of the economic and cultural damage to the welfare state caused by mis-managed immigration and exacerbated by globalization and expensive Net Zero follies. The ADF and the BSW are the rising voice of the ‘deplorable’ Somewheres. Are there unsavoury elements involved? Certainly. But if it means the cancelled classes will be heard then so be it.
The ruling progressives and their media friends have a choice. Forego ideological allegiance for Big Tent universality or foolishly continue efforts to stamp out these ‘threats’ and reap the inevitable consequences.
The elephant in the room? The EU.
Not only are the problems being experienced by Germany exacerbated by the policies and lack of accountability in the EU ‘leadership’ but those same problems – if they lead to German instability – will in turn destabilise the EU itself.
The potential ructions would make Brexit look like a cakewalk.
You’re still here? Wow.
It is not so much the EU but the current EU Commission
Vote them out. Oh, hang on…
After enough unsuccessful attempts to “vote them out”, one’s only option is to vote oneself out.
I don’t know what the German Constitution says about the right, if any, of the federal government to override lander elections but I could see something like that happening. The agreement between Bismarck and the states, however, left a lot of freedom of action to the states so that option might not exist. In any event, it would only buy time. I don’t think Europe as a whole realises the challenges ahead for Germany and for the EU.
It can’t ‘overrule a Land election’.
Sahra Wahenknecht is someone I sincerely admire – not necessarily for her politics but her courage and commitment to her political beliefs. Saw an interview with her a few weeks ago (part of a series called “(Miss)Verstehen Sie mich richtig”) which was largely irritating due to the daft-as-a-brush interviewer bringing in too many of her own views and insisting on asking Wagenknecht questions about her clothes (on which SW remarked quite drily that male politicians would never be asked such things). Talking about the process of setting up BSW, getting a list together for the EP elections, selecting members…I was deeply impressed by SW’s vision, practicality and experience. The woman is a politician with her heart and soul.
On the ongoing West-East split: the differences in mentality never went away. The newspaper Die Zeit did a series of infographics about 10 years ago, asking people from all over DE random questions, for example (with women) whether they would opt for a caesarean to give birth if given the choice. So often, as with this question, there was a glaring East/West split. With the caesarean question, women were clearly listening to their mums’ advice on birthing: women in the states of the former DDR (where caesareans weren’t encouraged) overwhelmingly wanted natural birth whereas western German women (where attitudes towards caesareans have been a lot more liberal in the postwar period) often wanted caesareans.
Utterly fascinating. It doesn’t surprise me at all that these clefts in attitudes and thinking are reentering the political domain.
Asia begins at the Elbe, for sure.
It’s funny what 40 years of communism does to people.
It’s funny what 40 years of liberal decadence does to people as well..
At least those of us who experienced the liberal decadence had a good time.
Least is the right term.
SW might be a charming, intelligent, and seriously minded woman, but her philosophy is totally Marxist. She wants all utilities, transportation etc. to be run by the State and already opposed Nuclear Power 10 years ago. She claimed in an interview, that all nuclear power could be replaced by renewable energy within a very short period of time. To me she seems like a more attractive Kamala Harris, thinking that Socialist Government Control is the solution for Germany‘s workers . This is the last thing Germany needs as the “Ampel” is currently destroying the industry, coming up with 5 year plans, legislating more regulations and dictating what the industry should and should not produce. This is the way to rapid deindustrialisation.
I think Sahra Wagenknecht has abandoned her pro-renewables, anti-nuclear position (which she took when she was a Linke MdB). She now says that renewables are putting up the cost of energy and that domestic users and industry need energy to be affordable. (Following her populist principles of getting the best for ordinary Germans.) This is one of her justifications for not cutting relations with Russia – Germany depends on Russia for gas and oil. Whether she wants nuclear power back isn’t so clear; she may say no now, but one can guess that if small modular reactors (as being developed in the USA and Britain) become viable and produce electricity at lower cost overall she will back Germany buying that technology simply for economic reasons.
Have you read the BSW party program? All is very vague and unclear. She is surrounded by her ex Linke party members You think they all went through a total conversion? She seems to me like a more intelligent Kamala, staying very quiet how Germany can be “saved” from its current economic troubles. She still mostly sticks to her Marxist principles and would be a disaster for Germany.
I dont’t think these elections are a harbinger of de-unification. East Germany is only spearheading a dissent with the ruling establishment that is also building up in the western parts. Chancellor Scholz is already seen as Germany’s worst head of government since 1949, and this comes only on top of migration crisis, energy crisis and a new culture war over leftist cultural hegemony. So it’s not de-unification but de-legitimization. Nevertheless, a revolution of the German party system might indeed be imminent.
Sahra Wagenknecht as foreign secretary is a dream ticket. 360˚ Baerbock is the nightmare.
It is interesting to note how casually we are normalising the notion that the choice of the people must be denied – in the interests of democracy, of course.
Let’s hope so. The balkanisation of Europe is inevitable now, anyway.
It offers a boundary-crossing combination of socialist economics, anti-Nato foreign policy and populist stances on issues like immigration. Can’t see why that wouldn’t be a winning strategy….
A bit like the SDP?
As this is a British medium, it would be interesting what counts as “socialist economics” here. In fact, BSW propagates old-fashioned ordo-liberalism.
‘As this is a British medium…’
Is it? There are a broad range of international subjects and contributors on Unherd; the readership is mostly British I presume.
Nationalising some industries – rail, water, electricity.
And Education.
Alright. Seems I’m a socialist, then. 🙂
I appreciate that terms for things differ between Britain and Europe, and that “socialism” isn’t a swear word in Europe as it is in Britain. I always remember the Euro-Lefties (many French) referring to the “Anglo Saxon Model” with distain when Margaret Thatcher wouldn’t embrace cuddly Euro-Socialism.
Good news for nu britn? Perhaps we could twin with East Germany and become The nu republic of Dystopia?
In all the Western countries being roiled by populist movements, the establishments merely have to adopt sane policies on immigration and energy/climate, and their populist “problem” would disappear. Yet, 8 years after the Brexit vote and Trump’s election, they absolutely refuse to budge an inch.
Most curious.
If I were a former DDR citizen and found myself subjected to digitally enforced soft-totalitarian leftism coming from Bonn requiring me to say what I don’t believe and to support policies designed to impoverish me and my family on the penalty of being adjudicated by kangaroo courts, I would feel myself thoroughly deceived by re-unification. In essence, I would have traded in one form of state authoritarianism for another.
Bonn?
Apologies…Berlin. In my time Bonn was the capital of West Germany…..I must be secretly pining for the Cold War.
There is a very good review of what Sahra Wagenknecht’s policies are on Youtube. Made in October 2023, when she was setting up the BSW, it is a fast-paced presentation showing well-chosen clips of her television interviews up to that time. It is titled ‘Der grosse Plan von Sahra Wagenknecht’, is 18 minutes long, and is subtitled in English throughout. On the ‘DI DA OBEN’ platform. Use this link: h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzGoTRKqid8
Ideal to learn all about SW and her views in English. Or click on the link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzGoTRKqid8
A second similar film with full English subtitles on the DI DA OBEN platform compares the positions of Sahra Wagenknecht and Alice Weidel, a leader of Alternatif für Deutschland. It is titled “Wagenknecht & Weidel – So ähnlich ticken sie wirklich”. See
See h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8wKmU9LgWU
Or click on the link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8wKmU9LgWU
Both are from 2023. There may be more recent (summer 2024) reports on both leaders, though not perhaps with English subtitles.
I can’t say I understand the German political system. My understanding is that the country is ruled by the individual states(lander) and no one entity controls another. It appears to be some type of collective where everything is decided by coalitions.