German far-right eyes government responsibility after huge election gains

The success of the far-right AfD, which made impressive gains in regional elections in two German states, has raised urgent questions about how long the party can be kept out of government, as its leaders lobbied for a future right-wing coalition on Monday.

While the centre-right sister parties CDU and CSU came out on top in Sunday’s elections in Hesse and Bavaria, while the ruling centre-left coalition was punished by voters, the AfD scored an unprecedented 18.4% and 14.6%, respectively, according to preliminary results.

Emboldened by Sunday’s results, the AfD leadership called for an end to its isolation from the government on Monday as other parties have traditionally drawn a categorical red line – a “firewall” – regarding any collaboration with the far-right due to Germany’s fascist past.

“The ‘firewall’ debate is deeply anti-democratic and excludes millions of voters from the acceptable range,” Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD, told reporters on Monday.

She claimed that the regional elections were a clear vote for a right-wing coalition between the centre-right and the AfD, predicting the imminent end of the ‘firewall’.

“This contempt and disregard of the [AfD] will not last very long,” she added.

In Bavaria and Hesse, the AfD will not play a role in the coalition talks, as the CDU and CSU have already announced that they will continue their coalitions with their junior Green and Liberal partners.

But the AfD’s gains appeared to herald a broader shift that could make it harder to ignore the party in the future, prompting Weidel to celebrate the results as a ‘double bang’, echoing a term coined by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

“In Germany, we are seeing voters swing from left to right,” Weidel said.

With gains of around 5% in each election – more than any other party combined – the AfD proved it could translate its impressive polling in recent months into actual votes. This was a particularly valuable victory for the party, demonstrating its competitiveness in two western German states.

Previous successes had often been shrugged off as a phenomenon mainly limited to Eastern Germany, where voters were said to be frustrated with prevailing inequality after German reunification.

Contrary to this interpretation of the AfD as a catalyst for the protest vote, most Bavarian AfD voters said they voted for the party out of conviction rather than disappointment, according to an Infratest Dimap poll.

The results are raising hopes within the party that it could soon grow too big to be ignored in coalition negotiations, especially at the 2024 regional elections in Saxony and Thuringia, where the party has been polling in first place.

While the CDU has officially insisted on keeping up the ‘firewall’, the party’s regional chapter in Thuringia has already taken cautious steps towards increased collaboration, as it recently coordinated with the AfD in crucial votes.

Among the reasons behind the far-right surge was the problematic reputation of the SPD-led centre-left government, which has struggled with infighting while the country has been hit by a string of bad news regarding the economy, Uwe Jun, a political scientist at the University of Trier, told Phoenix on Monday.

He does not consider the AfD’s rise unstoppable in principle.

“The coalition has to be aware of one thing: more than 70% of the population think that Germany’s wealth and economy are going downhill – this has to be countered, and that is the task for the federal government,” Jun said.

(Nick Alipour| Euractiv.de)