Shockwaves Across Europe: The AfD Sweeps Germany

These were regional elections in Germany's poorest region, the state of Saxony-Anhalt, located in what was once the GDR, or East Germany, and today the region with the oldest population (average age of 48), where only one in two citizens is of working age, and which has the highest public debt among the 16 states that make up the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). While polls had already predicted a landslide victory for Alternative for Germany (AfD), this can be described as overwhelming, having won 39 of the 83 seats in the regional Parliament with 44% of the votes, which is almost an absolute majority.. The political earthquake caused by such a triumph for the far right is compounded by the shock resulting from the resounding collapse of the traditional parties. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU, the party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz), despite being the second-most-voted political force, has lost nearly half of its electorate, falling below 20% of the voteand falling far short of even 20 seats. The Social Democrats of the SPD continue to confirm their painful decline, finding themselves reduced to fighting for third place, in a contest with Die Linke (The Left) and the Greens. The first conclusion to be drawn from these results—pending final verification—is that the AfD has capitalized on strong popular discontent, particularly regarding immigration, an issue that has become the most polarizing in virtually all countries of the European Union. During the election campaign itself, numerous voices went so far as to express a marked nostalgia for the times when the GDR was under the Soviet Union's thumb. Such is the fury over the impoverishment of the country, the rapid loss of its industrial base, and the stagnation of wages at a time when purchasing power is eroding as a result of inflation, that a large portion of these voters have chosen to rally behind the program of top-to-bottom change promised by the AfD. The most radical points of this program—which the party's regional leader, Ulrich Siegmund, promises to carry out—affect all of Europe: revoking the status of war refugees for asylum seekers from Ukraine, a country from which they would also withhold the funds that help it sustain its war effort against Russia. Ukraine would find a powerful ally in Siegmund, both to force an end to the sanctions imposed by the EU and to resume the supply of Russian gas to Germany. All of these promises are a source of great joy to President Vladimir Putin, who is currently surrounded by the hardest-line elements of the Russian regime, who would tolerate nothing less than victory in the war against Ukraine. If such drastic changes were to take effect, it is reasonable to predict that not only would the geopolitics of the European continent be completely altered, but the EU itself could be blown apart. Siegmund has described his landslide victory as historic, not only because it could bring the far right to power—albeit regionally for now—for the first time since the end of World War II, but also because it could usher in a new political order, the main consequence of which would be the disappearance of democratic governance through the so-called traditional parties. These parties had anticipated the AfD's exclusion from the electoral race after it was classified as a 'far-right party' by the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution—a key legal provision that specifically prohibits parties considered totalitarian from participating in political life. The memory of Nazism and the catastrophe it caused remain present in that ban. In this regard, it is worth recalling that the German Constitutional Court had already banned the other totalitarian ideology—opposite to Nazism—the Communist Party, in 1956. For the time being, the BfV has suspended the 'extremist' designation of the AfD, pending a final ruling by the Constitutional Court. As of today, and after learning the results of these elections, it would be very unusual for it to do so soon—and even more so to issue a conviction. It would also be quite unusual for all the parties defeated by the AfD to unite to maintain a wall of exclusion against the overwhelming winner of the election. In any case, in two weeks there will be other regional elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and four more in 2027. Perhaps it is time for the so-called traditional parties to make innovative proposals that give voters hope, instead of trying to scare them with cries that the wolf is coming, a tactic that is clearly ineffective in light of the election results. The supposed 'beast' of the far right could steal a march on them if, in addition to the major issues, it manages to fulfill its most populist promises: increasing deportations of illegal immigrants 'so that what happened in Ceuta doesn't happen again'; forcing asylum seekers who receive benefits to work; cuts in public spending, especially among civil servants in the regional administration, and even the elimination of the mandatory contribution to support a heavily deficit-ridden public television system.