German leaders react to far-right surge in Thuringia, Saxony

Polling companies and experts are starting to pick through the data from Sunday's votes. 

One notable trend was young voters aged 18-29 giving the AfD more support than any other party in both states. 

According to a group called Forschungsgruppe Wahlen (elections research group), 36% of 18-29-year-old's voted for the AfD in Thuringia. The Christian Democrats and the Left Party were tied for second with 13%. 

In Saxony, 30% of young voters plumped for the AfD, versus 15% for the Christian Democrats next.

However, it is worth noting that voter turnout in this age band is consistently lower than with older people, so it's also typically the cohort with the smallest sample of eligible voters casting any ballot at all.

Pollster Forsa, meanwhile, drew attention to what a small share of the voting population the AfD needed to be able to claim either first place or a close second after the vote. 

In both states, fewer than 25% of eligible voters chose the AfD, with more than 75% either supporting another party or not voting. 

Turnout was 62.6% in Thuringia, a 2.3% increase on 2019, and 75% in Saxony, up 8% on the previous state election. 

CDU leader Friedrich Merz held a press conference with the party's leaders from Saxony and Thuringia, Michael Kretschmer and Mario Voigt, in Berlin on Monday. 

He said that while it was ultimately up to the state chapters to decide how to try to form a government, he was skeptical about the BSW's suitability.

He referred to the group as a "cadre party," seemingly intentionally borrowing Soviet-era terminology when speaking of Sahra Wagenknecht's newly-formed grouping. 

"This is a cadre party of one person, who spoke extensively on foreign policy in both these state elections," Merz said. "But I really don't know what this party has to say on sewage charges in Thuringia and Saxony."

The BSW's heavy campaign stance on foreign policy issues like the war in Ukraine and US military presence in Germany prompted criticism from some quarters as unsuitable, given that state legislatures have little to no influence on foreign policy under Germany's federal system. 

One BSW leader has already said that if the CDU wants a coalition, it will need to pledge to do what little it can on these foreign policy matters.

Asked if he could see any points of overlap with BSW, Merz struck a dubious tone. 

"I have a feeling for and an eye on the Sahra Wagenknecht the personality," he said. "But as to who else has found their way into this alliance, I really cannot judge." 

Merz therefore referred to the newly-formed party as a "black box, or a red box, if you prefer," again sniping at Wagenknecht's perceived closeness to Russia.

Neither Saxony's Kretschmer nor Thuringia's Voigt has ruled out sounding out a possible alliance with the BSW. Kretschmer said it would be "difficult" but also potentially "possible."

The state premier of Bavaria, Markus Söder, said it gave him "a funny feeling in the stomach" to think about Christian Democrats in Saxony or Thuringia having to contemplate coalition government with either the socialist Left Party or the populist left-wing BSW. 

The CDU was the strongest party in Saxony and the second strongest in Thuringia, and therefore looks set to lead the government of both states — given that no parties say they are willing to team up with the AfD. 

But in both states, to form a majority government, the CDU will need allies far to the left of center that would seem unthinkable in Bavaria.

"It's not just about forming a government, so that you have a government," Söder said. He warned that forming a poorly functioning coalition might merely risk strengthening the AfD further. 

Söder, who is flirting with the idea of standing for chancellor next year, also argued that the results showed how important it was for a change of federal government — nicknamed the "traffic light" coalition in German because of the red, yellow and green party colors.

"The traffic light didn't just lose," he said. "The traffic light is a smoking ruin." 

The head of the Bavarian CSU again hinted at his chancellor ambitions, albeit while stressing that the other potential candidate was the larger CDU sister party's leader Friedrich Merz. 

"For me, being state premier is the finest office, but I would not shy away from taking responsibility for the country," he said. 

Merz and Söder have said they intend to team up and reach a recommendation to put to the party on the so-called "chancellor question" in "late summer" of this year. Merz said on Monday that that late summer was not yet over and that Söder's comments were nothing new. 

"It's not about who does it, it's about what the end result is," Söder said, saying the CSU and CDU were "united as never before." 

FDP national party leader and German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said in Berlin on Monday that while he agreed his party had suffered in Thuringia and Saxony because of its membership in the national coalition government, he did not advocate pulling out of it. 

The FDP's leader in Thuringia, Thomas Kemmerich, had called for the party to withdraw from the national government after dire results on Sunday. 

"Here we are of different viewpoints," Lindner said. 

He pointed to "a series of projects being legislated that are important to us," including a so-called growth initiative. 

"It's better that these measures come now than if they don't come at all," he said. Lindner also said his party would stand by its word and the coalition agreement it signed. 

However he also called on the other governing parties to take action on the issue of migration. 

"In particular, people are sick of the idea that this state has possibly lost control of migration and asylum in Germany," Lindner said. 

Saxony and Thuringia, and former East Germany more generally, have never been happy hunting grounds for the neoliberal FDP.

In 2019, back when it was still in oppsoition at the national level and polling far better across the country, the party barely cleared the 5% hurdle in Thuringia and narrowly missed it in Saxony. 

But on Sunday, the party dipped markedly, scoring just 1.1% support in Thuringia and 0.9% in Saxony. 

The co-chair of the Social Democrats, Saskia Esken, told DW that her party was both disappointed with Sunday's results, but also relieved to have avoided what seemed the worst-case scenario in the run-up to the vote. 

"These state elections of course do not leave us satisfied — being in the single digits in these states pains us," Esken said, with the SPD claiming less than 10% of the vote in Saxony and Thuringia. 

But Esken said that the party had also performed "more or less" as well as in the last state elections, and better than in some polls before the vote, so "in that regard there's also an element of relief."  

In another interview on Monday, Esken rode to the aid of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, also of the SPD, saying he would be the party's candidate for chancellor at next year's federal election and that the SPD "will win this vote."

To do that, the party will need quite the turnaround in fortunes between this September and next: opinion polls currently put the SPD roughly 15% behind the opposition CDU/CSU nationwide, at around half its level of support. 

Asked what the party needed to do to improve its fortunes, she told DW it needed to be clearer that the federal government "is led by the SPD." 

She also said it was crucial for three-party coalition to press ahead with major policies like next year's delayed budget and stalled pension reform plans. 

"All this arguing in public needs to stop, all this relativizing of decisions the day after they're reached," Esken said of the fractious coalition and its internal squabbling often played out in the press. 

She also said it was important for the SPD to reassert that politics for working people "is only available with the SPD." 

"Particularly those who claim to stand for workers, namely the AfD, in no way do so," Esken said. "It is a party of the wealthy elites and we need to make that clear again and again."

The election commissioner for Saxony has said that the seat tallies published in preliminary final results gave one too many seats to the CDU and AfD, and one too few to the SPD and the Greens. 

The state's election commission said a software failure had led to the publication of the erroneous data. 

The change is significant in that it means the AfD is on course for 39 seats, not 40. In the 120-seat chamber, possessing 40 seats would have meant the AfD could have blocked any legislation requiring a two-thirds supermajority by itself. Now it would fall one short. 

However, the chances of future governments in either Saxony or Thuringia passing or seeking to pass such supermajority legislation in the coming years does not seem particularly high given how difficult it will likely be just to find coalitions wielding simple majorities.

Monday's announcement boosts the SPD to 11 seats, the Greens to 7, and pushes the CDU down to 41.

The co-leader of the populist left-wing BSW or Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, Amira Mohamed Ali, said that the party's principal condition for joining a coalition would be for a future state government to speak up on foreign policy issues. 

In particular, the BSW advocates a referendum in Germany on plans to station more US missiles in the country, a halt to German weapons deliveries to Ukraine, and peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv.

Ali said it now lay with potential coalition partners, most of the all the CDU, to decide "whether they could envisage that." 

State governments are not responsible for foreign policy under Germany's federal system. 

Nevertheless, Ali said a state government could still raise its voice, and potentially even initiate motions in Germany's upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, where states have more influence.

Ali also said she believed Saxony state premier Michael Kretschmer's personal positions on these issues might be rather closer to her party than that of the CDU, based on some of his previous comments on Ukraine. 

She also said her party ruled out cooperation with the AfD — the two populist parties combined would wield a majority in Thuringia, and would come close to one in Saxony.

Saxony's state premier Michael Kretschmer of the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) described a potential alliance involving the new populist left-wing BSW party as at least a possibility, if not a simple one. 

"It won't be easy, and it will also take time, but it is possible," Kretschmer said of the prospect. 

"I wish to serve this state, I wish to give this state a stable government," he told Deutschlandfunk on Monday. "And we will see whether others want that too."

 

Kretschmer's CDU won 31.9% of the vote in Saxony, just ahead of the AfD on 30.6%.

If Kretschmer could find common ground with the "Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance" (or BSW) belonging to the breakaway former Left Party leader, it would make it much simpler to reach a majority of 61 seats in the state parliament. 

As it stands, the CDU, Social Democrats and Greens would only command a combined 59 seats.

The BSW is on course for 15 seats, while the projected 40 AfD lawmakers in Saxony appear destined to lead the opposition in the state parliament.

But Kretschmer said his party was still "far, far away" from coalition talks and would first need to "breathe deeply" and digest the outcome together. He warned it could take months to finalize a new government. 

Kretschmer also played down Wagenknecht's own role in any potential negotiations. 

"We would not be forming a coalition with Mrs. Wagenknecht, but rather with people elected to Saxony's state parliament," he said.

The leaders of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) , Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, both said early on Monday that their party should be part of the next governments in Thuringia and Saxony. 

"Of course we have a government mandate," Weidel said on ZDF public television. 

She said that voters in both states had indicated their desire for what she termed a centrist and right-wing coalition involving the AfD. 

Weidel said she did not believe that the center-right CDU's pledge not to govern in coalition with or with support from the AfD could hold following Sunday's results.

"We want to wait and see how the CDU will behave over time," Weidel said. 

Tino Chrupalla, meanwhile, tried to entice Saxony's CDU state premier Winfried Kretschmer into coalition talks in a radio interview, after the CDU remained the largest party in the state. 

"With whom does he want to deliver his campaign promises?" Chrupalla asked on Deutschlandfunk. "That would more likely work with us, I think, than for instance with the SPD or the Greens." 

The leader of the AfD in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, made similar comments on Sunday night after the results. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the news agency Reuters the results of the state elections were "bitter" for his Social Democrats (SPD), saying he was speaking in his capacity as an SPD parliamentarian not as chancellor. 

"All democratic parties are now called upon to form stable governments without right-wing extremists," Scholz said, in reference to the AfD. He said the party's success on Sunday was concerning. 

"Our country cannot and must not become accustomed to this," Scholz said. "The AfD damages our country. It weakens the economy, divides society, and ruins our country's reputation." 

Nevertheless, Scholz also tried to find the positives from a party political perspective. 

"The election results of Sunday are bitter — also for us. And yet, the SPD stuck together," he said, adding that thought the party had conducted a good and clear campaign. 

"That paid off, because the bleak prognoses regarding the SPD did not come to pass," he said. 

Although it's true that the SPD avoided losing its representation in the two eastern state parliaments altogether, as some pollsters believed to be a possibility, in both states the center-left party won less than 10% of the vote and only narrowly cleared the 5% minimum hurdle to guarantee representation.

The eastern German states of Saxony and Thuringia voted on Sunday, with the far-right AfD faring roughly as well as expected in the run-up to the vote in its strongest regions in Germany. 

The AfD was the largest single party in Thuringia with 32.8% of votes under its controversial state leader Björn Höcke, the first time it's achieved this in a German state since it was founded in 2013.

The Christian Democrats were a fairly distant second followed by the new left-wing populist BSW party set up by Sahra Wagenknecht, and then Germany's older socialist Left Party, which Wagenknecht broke away from. 

Two of the parties in federal government in Germany, the Greens and the pro-business FDP, missed the 5% threshold entirely and won no representation in Thuringia.

The Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz claimed a meager 6.1%.

The AfD also finished a close second to the Christian Democrats in Saxony, with the CDU on 31.9% and the AfD on 30.6%.

No other party won more than 12% of the vote and again the parties in Germany's national government were mauled: The Greens and the SPD just scraped into the state parliament on single-digit support and the FDP missed the 5% hurdle altogether.

msh/lo (AP, AFP, KNA, dpa, Reuters)