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A new state parliament will soon be elected in Thuringia. According to a recent survey, new power structures are suddenly possible. In the leading role: Sahra Wagenknecht.
Update from June 19, 2024, 10:11 p.m.: In Saxony, too, Wagenknecht’s BSW is strong in a survey – even stronger than all the traffic light parties combined.
First report from June 18, 2024: Erfurt – The election of Thomas Kemmerich as the first FDP Prime Minister went down in German history four years ago – the consequences of the election even brought down the then CDU Federal Chairwoman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. The election in three months is therefore likely to be highly explosive in domestic politics – as was also shown by the recent TV debate between Björn Höcke and Mario Voigt. A current survey again points to a difficult formation of a government with completely new options for power.
Election in Thuringia 2024: Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) Alliance at 21 percent – three times as strong as the SPD
The opinion research institute Infratest Dimap surveyed 1,172 representatively selected Thuringians on behalf of MDR between June 13 and 16. The Left Party of Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow is continuing to lose support and is only at eleven percent, as the survey published on Tuesday shows. The strongest force would be the AfD with 28 percent, which is classified as definitely right-wing extremist by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Thuringia.
According to the survey, the CDU achieved 23 percent, closely followed by the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) coalition with 21 percent. The SPD received seven percent, while the Greens and FDP would no longer be represented in the state parliament.
Forming a government could be difficult, as neither the current red-red-green coalition nor any other coalition currently governing Germany would have a majority. Mathematically, a three-way alliance between the CDU, BSW and SPD would be possible.
Thuringia election 2024: AfD strongest party, FDP only among others: the poll results at a glance
The survey results at a glance – the “other” parties come in at 6 percent, including the FDP:
| AfD | 28 percent | Minus 1 percent |
| CDU | 23 percent | Plus 3 percent |
| BSW | 21 percent | Plus 6 percent |
| left | 11 percent | Minus 5 percent |
| SPD | 7 percent | Minus 2 percent |
| Green | 4 percent | Minus 1 percent |
Despite the poor poll ratings in the state elections, the FDP wants to get back into parliament. “Eight percent for Thuringia, that is our goal,” said top candidate and state chairman Thomas Kemmerich in Erfurt at the weekend. “Our goal remains: to form a bourgeois government with the CDU and SPD,” Kemmerich continued. Kemmerich ruled out coalitions with the Left and the Greens as well as the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) alliance, as well as any cooperation with the AfD.
CDU-BSW government after Thuringia election in 2024? “We must remain willing to talk”
The survey results for Thuringia put a possible cooperation between the CDU and BSW in focus. Only recently CDU leader Friedrich Merz’s rejection of such a coalition caused a stir – some in his party do not want to close the door to a new alliance between the CDU and BSW. Merz had made it clear that cooperation at the federal level was not an option, explained North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU). At the state level, however, one must “look very closely” at who is running for the BSW.
Armin Laschet, who was CDU party chairman until 2022, also recently stressed that the CDU had not ruled out coalitions with the BSW. CDU parliamentary group vice-chairman Sepp Müller now told the Daily Mirrorthat the CDU must “remain willing to talk” with all other parties except the AfD and the Left. He stresses explicitly for the eastern German state: “It depends on the content and the people on the ground. In Thuringia, the mayor of Eisenach or a TV presenter from MDR are running. As far as I can tell, you can talk to these people.”