“Political earthquake” is the description used by international news agencies and German media to describe the result of the regional elections that took place in Germany Yesterday, Sunday, which witnessed a remarkable advance for the far right, as it achieved a prominent victory that further weakened the ruling center-left coalition a year before the parliamentary elections.
The Alternative for Germany party has won the elections in the eastern German state of Thuringia, marking the first time it has won a local election since its founding 11 years ago.
According to the German News Agency, the alternative won between 31 and 33% of the voters’ votes, compared to about 23% it received in the previous elections in 2019.
The Christian Party won about 24% of the votes, followed by the alliance of politician Sahra Wagenknecht, who split from the Left Alliance, which in turn won only 12% of the votes, a significant decline from the previous elections, in which it won 31% of the voters’ votes.
It is worth noting that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (domestic intelligence) classifies the Alternative for Germany party as a “confirmed case of a right-wing extremist organization,” according to the German News Agency.
Setback for the ruling coalition
The results in the state of Thuringia reflect a significant decline for the ruling coalition parties, namely the Social Democratic Party led by Chancellor Angela Merkel. Olaf SchultzThe Green Party and the Free Democratic Party (liberal), with the former receiving about 6.5%, the latter about 3.8%, and the latter only 1.2%, noting that entry into the regional parliament requires the party to obtain 5% of the votes.
The situation was not much different in the state of Saxony, another state of what was known as the German Democratic Republic or East Germany. Although the far right did not come out on top as it did in Thuringia, it came in second, with a slight difference from the Christian Democratic Party, while the newly founded Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance came in third place.
The Christian Democratic Union, to which the state’s local government leader Michael Kretschmer belongs, won about 31.7%, compared to about 31.3% for the Alternative for Germany, and about 11.8% for Sahra Wagenknecht’s coalition, while Chancellor Scholz’s party was satisfied with about 8.1% and the Greens with about 5.3%.
For its part, Agence France-Presse commented on the election results, considering that the far right emerged as a major player, compared to further weakness for the center-left coalition led by Olaf Scholz a year before the parliamentary elections.
As for Al Jazeera’s correspondent, he pointed out that the noticeable decline in the popularity of the ruling coalition is due to internal disputes and accusations of mismanagement of the asylum file, in addition to the continued support for Ukraine.
lost its legitimacy
In reaction to the results, AfD co-chair Tino Kruppala said, “There will be no politics without the AfD.”
For his part, Björn Höcke, the party’s leader in Thuringia and one of the party’s most extreme figures, said, according to Agence France-Presse, that he was “ready to cooperate,” but that there was no other party that wanted to form an alliance with him.
The same agency pointed out that the elections did not witness the progress of the Alternative for Germany Party alone, but also the “PSW” party, which was founded by a radical leftist figure, Sahra Wagenknecht, which opposes immigration and also demands a halt to arms supplies to Ukraine.
In contrast, the ruling coalition parties suffered a second setback, after also losing ground in the European Parliament elections held last June to the conservative opposition and the far right.
The comment made by Wolfgang Kubicki, deputy leader of the Free Democratic Party, a member of the ruling coalition, was striking, as he considered that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government had lost its legitimacy in light of the poor results in two states during the elections held on Sunday.
According to preliminary results, the FDP will not be able to win any seats in the Thuringian and Saxony parliaments, given that it only received about 1% of the votes.
