Is Europe Still Lurching to the Right? E. Germany Appears to Be

Looking for an alternative: AfD soars in East Germany polls

ahead of crucial regional elections

©  Reuters / Pawel Sosnowski

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has received a groundswell of support in Eastern Germany, leading in polls just weeks before regional elections in three states. Support for major parties is at a historic low.

In an outcome sure to unnerve Germany’s more conventional politicians, a series of polls conducted in June and July has demonstrated that the anti-establishment force has moved to the fore in the former Eastern Bloc territory, where they enjoy steady public backing – all ahead of the crucial regional elections, two of which are scheduled in about a month’s time.

By contrast, the heavyweights of German politics – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and their coalition partners in the Social Democratic Party (SPD) – are facing what might be called a near collapse of popular support in the same eastern regions. In the latest poll conducted by the Emnid Institute, AfD picked up 23 percent of the vote in the five East German states, narrowly beating out the CDU, which received 22 percent.

All other political forces are lagging: the Left Party (Die Linke) took third place with 14 percent backing, while the Greens nipped at their heels just one percentage point behind. Meanwhile, the Social Democrats, once considered one of Germany’s “people’s parties” – or factions enjoying the broadest public support – have dropped to fifth place in the East, earning a mere 11 percent of the vote.

Looming defeat

In the states of Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, where regional elections are scheduled for the coming weeks, the CDU and the SPD are facing a real risk of defeat – from contenders on both ends of the political spectrum.

In Brandenburg, a Social Democratic stronghold ever since Germany’s reunification in the 1990s, the SPD is now poised to be dethroned by AfD, while Saxony will likely see a closer race against the CDU, which faces historically low support in the region. Thuringia seems to be divided between the two niche parties, the Left and the AfD, according to the latest poll.

The more establishment-friendly politicians are still attempting to reverse the trends favoring their competitors with tried-and-true tactics of comparing them to Nazis, or accusing them of exploiting Germany’s problems. Most recently, Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) told the German media that AfD’s rhetoric is something that “we have previously heard only from the NPD” – an openly neo-Nazi party, which the German government has repeatedly sought to ban.

Yet, these strategies no longer appear to work – and the German establishment may only have itself to blame.

Out of touch with voters

As striking as they may seem, the poll results do not guarantee the AfD’s victory in any of the German states – even in the East. It would need to form a coalition in order to govern, but so far not a single party has expressed willingness to join forces and create a ruling bloc.

Besides, the party’s support is significantly less impressive on the national level. Throughout all of Germany, the AfD enjoys only 12 percent of support, falling far behind both the CDU (27 percent), the SPD (13 percent) and even the Greens (25 percent), who have seen an almost unprecedented surge in popularity over the last year.

AfD’s success in the East, however, can hardly be explained solely by the rise of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments in that part of the country, regardless of how hard the German media works to portray the region as a hotbed of far-right extremism.

Germans in the east tend to be more concerned over migration, an issue that Merkel and other mainstream political forces have long tended to ignore, refusing to consider that the infamous “open doors” policy at the height of the 2015 refugee crisis may have been a mistake. The AfD certainly capitalizes on the regional feelings, but that alone does not explain the party’s support.

East German weariness of the old “people’s parties” may have something to do with the fact that their living standards have yet to match those in the West, thirty years after the German reunification. After years of establishment parties ruling over the East almost unchallenged, the region is still seeing sluggish economic growth, with an ‘Ossi’ earning 40 percent less than any other German.

According to some reports, it is this inequality between the East and West that has given both the AfD and the Left a boost. It might well be that the establishment parties have simply lost touch with their voters, who, in turn, have become disillusioned with the traditional forces and struck out to find an alternative.

The End of Merkel? Open-Door Migrant Policy Sends Coalition Running for the Exits

After Greeks started painting 'Der Fuhrer' mustaches on Angela Merkel because of her hard-line on their utterly irresponsible finances, she saw the migrant crisis as a way to boost her image to one of compassion. The gambit worked, for awhile, and then the reality of the consequences of inviting a million Muslims into Germany with no vetting began to set in. After 2 years, some politicians are overcoming their political correctness and beginning to realize that Germany is on the road to cultural suicide.

Migrants take selfies with German Chancellor Angela Merkel © Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing an unprecedented political crisis that could upend her image as the “new leader of the west” after the Free Democrats (FDP) abruptly pulled out of negotiations with Merkel’s conservative bloc and the Greens.

Responses to the failed negotiations were immediate. The euro plunged to a 2-month low against the yen, and a planned meeting between Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was cancelled “in view of the political development last night,” according to German government spokesman Steffen Seibert.

Merkel won a fourth term as chancellor in September’s national Bundestag election, but her own party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and its Bavarian ally the Christian Social Union (CSU), lost 65 seats between them — their worst showing in decades.

With her own conservative bloc unable to command a majority in parliament, Merkel attempted to forge a so-called ‘Jamaica’ coalition with the pro-business FDP and the progressive Green Party.

But after more than four weeks of negotiations, FDP leader Christian Lindner announced on Sunday that his party was withdrawing from the proposed political alliance, citing irreconcilable differences between the would-be coalition partners.

Migrant crisis lays waste to Merkel’s coalition

Disagreements over climate, energy, and monetary policy required difficult compromises — but “the elephant in the room” that made the Jamaica coalition untenable is Germany’s migrant crisis, Maximilian Krah, a former CDU politician, told RT.

“The migrant issue is the main issue in the whole of Germany,” Krah insisted. “Whenever you go into private discussions, that’s the issue. But political correctness prevents the German public from debating it openly,” he said.

“If you read the declaration of the liberals when they broke up the coalition talks yesterday night, the migrant crisis was just one word among a lot of others but no one believes that they broke up because [of] the debate on ‘Industry 4.0’ or digital industry.”

Since 2015, over 1 million refugees have flooded into Germany from the Middle East and North Africa. Merkel’s uncompromising open door policy towards migrants galvanized Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which scooped up 13 percent of the vote in September’s election.

Frank Hansel, a member of German parliament from AfD, told RT that Merkel’s unwillingness to change course led to the downfall of her proposed majority coalition — and ushers in the “end of the Merkel era.”

“She was not able or capable or willing to change her policies regarding the euro crisis which still divides Europe", Hansel said of Merkel. “She was not willing to change her policy regarding the illegal mass migration. So this really had to come to an end. The Jamaica government will never come into existence.”

A political system in crisis

Merkel’s options are limited as she attempts to navigate what is essentially unchartered territory in German politics.

The creation of a new majority coalition is unlikely, as it would require the staunchly anti-Merkel Social Democrats (SPD) to join forces with the conservatives. Hours after the Jamaica coalition talks failed on Sunday night, SPD deputy leader Thorsten Schäfer-Gumbel stated unequivocally that his party was “not the spare wheel on Angela Merkel’s careening car,” as cited by Deutsche Welle.

Forming a minority government, while possible, is a “long and humiliating procedure,” Dr. Rainer Rothfuss, a geopolitical analyst and consultant, told RT. “The German political system is in crisis. This has been clear already when we saw the election results in November,” he added.

According to Germany’s constitution, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has the option of nominating someone for the office of chancellor. In this scenario, Steinmeier would likely nominate Merkel, but if she failed to win an absolute majority in the Bundestag, it could trigger a new election within 60 days.

The end of Merkel?

Journalists, pundits, and politicians alike have now called into question the popular mantra that, in the wake of Trump’s presidential election victory, Merkel is the “new leader of the West.” The failed coalition will also likely hurt Germany’s standing within Europe, which has looked to Berlin for political and economic leadership, Rothfuss told RT.

“Germany, at the moment, has lost influence inside the EU, and I think that this reflects also the misguided policies of Germany in the past two or three years which started most of all with the 2015 refugee crisis which led to an influx of over 1 million refugees from the Middle East, and which also led, in consequence, to the Brexit vote,” said Rothfuss.

While Merkel’s fate is uncertain, experts argue that it is clear we are witnessing the “final stage” of her chancellorship.

“We’ve reached the final stage of Merkel’s chancellorship, but I can’t tell you how long this stage will last,” said Krah. “It can last 3 months or 3 years. But you can be sure you won’t see Merkel in charge by the year 2020.”