“We are ready and willing to talk to all parties,” said Tino Chrupalla, one of AfD’s leaders, warning that “there will be no politics without AfD.”
The anti-immigration party took the lead in the elections in the former East German state of Thuringia for the first time in history, with around 33% of the vote. votes, and took second place in neighboring Saxony.
But the winner of Sunday’s election in Thuringia will find it difficult to form an effective majority, as other parties have repeatedly rejected the possibility of working with the AfD.
The memory of the Nazis, who also achieved their first success in the Thuringian state elections, makes cooperation with far-right parties a big taboo.
“Voters know that we are not forming coalitions with the AfD,” said Carsten Linnemann, secretary general of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
But T. Chrupalla called on other parties to abandon their long-term “barrier” against the AfD and instead respect the will of the voters.
“Smart Government”
In Saxony, the CDU only narrowly edged out the AfD with 32 percent. votes, and Thuringia came in second.
The conservatives are still hoping to lead the next government in Thuringia, with their leading candidate Mario Voigt calling for a “sensible government” in the CDU-led coalition.
Meanwhile, the controversial local leader of the AfD, Bjoern Hoecke, has declared that his party is the “Thuringian People’s Party”. “We need change, and change will only come with the AfD,” he said, hailing the “historic result.”
Mr Hoecke has often caused outrage with his outspoken remarks and was fined twice this year for knowingly using a banned Nazi slogan.
Hoecke’s divisive personality makes forming a coalition with any other party doubly difficult.
Sahra Wagenknecht, head of the far-left BSW party, said her party “cannot work together” with Mr Hoecke and has long ruled out a coalition with the AfD.
At the beginning of this year, BSW, which broke away from the former communist party “Linke”, won a dozen percent in both regional elections. votes and is considered a key member of any coalition.
But the BSW has serious differences with the more established parties, including a pro-Russian stance and opposition to the planned deployment of US missiles in Germany, which will complicate negotiations.
“Disturbing Victory”
Political divisions and complicated electoral mathematics mean that after two regional elections “it will be difficult to form a government,” said Marianne Kneuer, a politics professor at the Dresden University of Technology.
The election results not only resulted in a “disturbing” victory for the AfD, but were also “a big blow to the entire government and to Olaf Scholz,” Kneuer said.
O. Scholz’s Social Democrats achieved modest results: in Saxony they gathered about seven percent, while in Thuringia they fell to six percent.
The situation of the current coalition partners, the liberal FDP and the Green Party, is even more difficult. The FDP fell short of the five percent barrier needed to win seats in both elections, and the Greens barely broke through in Saxony.
Lars Klingbeil, chairman of the Social Democratic Party, said the results were “no reason to be happy” and added that the party should have done “better”. “We have to take into account people’s everyday concerns,” he said.
The AfD was founded in 2013 as an anti-euro organization, but has since morphed into an anti-immigration party and, capitalizing on dissatisfaction with the government, has surged in the polls.
2024-09-02 13:37:38