analysis
The AfD is currently the strongest political force in East Germany. So far, this has not allowed the other parties to move closer together. What does that mean for the coming election year?
Something had to come out. “You hear nothing about concepts and ideas for the future. Everyone just disagrees!” This is how a Thuringian local politician summarizes the political situation on Twitter. The CDU’s toleration of Bodo Ramelow’s red-red-green minority government has had no real basis for a year and a half.
Under his tweet, André Neumann, CDU mayor of the district town of Altenburg, shows the consequences of the ongoing dispute: In a recent survey, the AfD is well ahead of all other parties. If there were an election on Sunday, not even the left and the CDU together would have a parliamentary majority.
In Saxony, Kretschmer hands out against the Greens
Scene change to Saxony. In the “Bild am Sonntag” CDU Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer hands out against the Greens. Their politicians are “ecological madness”, the party in East Germany has “gambled away the basic trust of the population”. The traffic light plans would lead to “deindustrialization and popular upheaval”.
Like Kretschmer, many CDU East politicians have been attacking the Greens for months. The interesting thing about it: Kretschmer governs in Dresden himself with the Greens. Its Minister Wolfram Günther found that the Prime Minister was strengthening the AfD. It was said of the third coalition partner, the SPD, that it would “pose a risk to Saxony as a business location”.
What does that mean for the state elections?
In Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, state elections are scheduled for summer and autumn 2024. The AfD can probably count on around a quarter of all votes here. It could also become the strongest political force. The fact that the CDU and the Greens are already governing together in the East is a response to past AfD successes.
But the demarcation from the extreme right has not allowed the parties to move closer together. Neither the CDU and the Left, nor the CDU and the Greens. The party researcher Benjamin Höhne attests the latter in East Germany a rather tense relationship. In the west, on the other hand, it works “quite smoothly, even if the CDU subordinates itself to the Greens, as in Baden-Württemberg,” says Höhne.
There are many reasons for this. Society developed differently in the West. “Greens and blacks share certain worldviews there,” says Höhne. And where voting milieus overlap in the West, they are separate in the East.
The first casualty of this conflict was the first alliance against the AfD. In 2016, the CDU, SPD and Greens formed a coalition in Saxony-Anhalt. Germany’s first Kenya coalition wanted to be a “bulwark”. Then some CDU MPs voted with the AfD. The coalition barely survived a dispute over public broadcasting. In the corona pandemic, the staff behind the scenes became increasingly alienated.
When the FDP returned to parliament after the 2021 state elections, it quickly became clear that the CDU would back the Liberals instead of the Greens. Some social democrats are still not sad about this. Since then, the CDU and the Greens have been harping and lecturing each other. A new edition seems impossible. The CDU relies on its own strength and apparently on the fact that the FDP remains permanently above five percent.
give each other space
It doesn’t have to be like this in Saxony in 2024. “A certain amount of debate within a coalition is okay,” says Höhne. After all, it is important to unite different programs. And behind drastic words there could also be a strategy “to keep one’s own people in line and to mobilize them”. That takes the wind out of the sails of populism.
In any case, it is crucial for every coalition that the people at the top get along with each other and “give the coalition partner space to distinguish themselves”. Höhne refers to the end of Red-Green-Red in Berlin and the collaborative ones Breakage of the tips Franziska Giffey and Bettina Jarasch.
However, the political situation was not as complicated as in Thuringia. Relationships of trust have become rare among the Erfurt management staff. To this day, neither side can credibly convey how it intends to govern after the 2024 election. Ramelow’s red-red-green is still far from having its own majority. A four-party alliance of CDU, SPD, FDP and Greens, however. It is questionable whether the FDP would participate at all. Country chief Thomas Kemmich prefers to work on the Greens.
A scenario that is in the room: in the future, the left will tolerate a CDU minority government. Others ask about the attitude of the CDU to the AfD. They recall the fiasco when the CDU, FDP and AfD elected Kemmerich as short-term prime minister without a government of their own. In November last year, an anti-gender motion by the CDU parliamentary group in the Erfurt state parliament was successful – thanks to votes from the FDP and AfD. And black and blue would probably have a majority.
Party researcher Höhne sees no signs of cooperation. “Recently there has not been an influential voice from the CDU that would have dared to make any advances in this direction,” says Höhne. That also has to do with party leader Friedrich Merz. He tries to take a more conservative path, but distances himself from the right.
Höhne sees a different problem. The demarcation policy towards the AfD has its price. And one party pays for it more than others: “Just asking the CDU to open up to the left will not be enough,” says Höhne. This is shown by the example of Thuringia. He thinks that the SPD and the Greens in particular should think about a better division.
Signs of Höhne’s thesis can be found in Saxony. The coalition negotiated at length on a new equality law, the draft of which the cabinet approved on Tuesday. In the dispute over an early phase-out of coal in the lignite-producing region of Saxony, the Greens said almost cautiously that they wanted to “accompany the market-driven, faster phase-out of coal”. Your parliamentary group leader is publicly considering increasing the deportations of rejected asylum seekers.
AfD wants to govern
And the AfD? At the beginning of January, Federal President Weidel announced that the goal for the state elections in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia would be to participate in the government for the first time. Since then, the party has made no move towards others. The open calculation: to become so strong that others don’t want to work with you, but have to.
The eastern associations are still firmly in the hands of the extreme right-wing former “wing” network. The sound that cultivates has recently become clear again. On State party conferences in Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt spoke of “alien powers”. The pre-war rhetoric is aimed at the US, which should please stay out of Europe. Free ride for Putin.
Apparently, that doesn’t scare the voters. The CDU does, believes Höhne. The first politicians would only think about working together again when the AfD-Ost associations distance themselves from the far right and eliminate any suspicion of right-wing extremism. Because: “As long as there are no taboos for the AfD, as long as they maneuver themselves offside.”