A bitter rejection of Germany’s joyous reunification three decades ago, and a threat to the democratic postwar order. Sizing up the repercussions of last weekend’s win for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party in the former communist state of Saxony-Anhalt, German commentators expressed a sense of doom, panic and helplessness in the political establishment. With nearly 44% of the vote, the AfD fell three seats short of an absolute majority.
Its media savvy chief candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, is racing to find enough support from the other parties to prop up what would be the first rightwing extremist state government since the Nazi period. It is still anyone’s guess whether he will succeed, leaving a corrosive uncertainty at the heart of Europe’s top economic power. Hanging in the balance is the fate of Friedrich Merz’s centre-right government, once called “democracy’s last shot” to prevent an extremist takeover in Germany.
The result in Saxony-Anhalt has put the conservative chancellor on the ropes, with further punishment for his Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) expected in two more state polls later this month. Whether or not he survives politically until the next general election, due in 2029, will have dramatic repercussions for Germany and its European allies trying to beat back anti-democratic forces. Pivotal elections are due next year in countries including France, Spain, Italy and Poland.
Merz’s many critics say the 70-year-old former BlackRock executive is the wrong man at such a consequential crossroads, calling him a ham-fisted and empathetically challenged leader who is erratic in his messaging. Only in office 16 months, the chancellor often seemed incapable of one of the basic tasks of leadership: making the case to voters that accepting bitter pills now could lead to a brighter future, said the political scientist Thomas Biebricher of Frankfurt’s Goethe University. The former chancellor Angela Merkel, Merz’s longtime rival within the CDU, has criticised him publicly for his hardline rhetoric on migration and integration but said she took no pleasure in the debacle given the stakes.
Merkel, 72, noted that the CDU had pointed to data during the Saxony-Anhalt campaign showing that joblessness had fallen and household wealth had risen in the small, relatively poor state. It grew increasingly radical during the 2015-2016 refugee influx, when she left the borders open to more than a million asylum seekers fleeing war and hardship. Merz took office last year saying he would put the country back on track after the implosion of the previous government under Olaf Scholz.
He promised a return to economic growth, a restoration of defence capabilities and urgent repairs to the creaking social welfare system. His recipe for confronting the far right – one of his key pledges – was competence in governing and solutions for Germans’ most urgent problems. Merz also promised a rejection of Merkel’s open-border policy in an attempt to rob the AfD of its signature issue.
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