Germany's mainstream politicians will be forced to assemble unwieldy coalitions to keep the AfD from power
WILD CHEERS seem an odd response when your party has just shed almost one-fifth of its support. But that is how the Saxon branch of Germany’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union , gathered in a sweaty restaurant in Dresden, hailed the result of a state election on September 1st. The fear before the elections, in Saxony as well as Brandenburg, another east German state, was that the hard-right Alternative for Germany might come first in one or both. In the end, the centre held.
Yet this was still a strong night for the AfD. Since the last elections, in 2014, it has almost doubled its support in Brandenburg and tripled it in Saxony . It has exploited an increasingly fragmented party system, thriving in east Germany even as it has radicalised under the influence of an ultra-right grouping known as the Flügel .
Michael Kretschmer, Saxony′s CDU premier, will take the credit for ensuring that the blue wave was kept in check. During a tireless campaign, marked by endless beer-and-bratwurst sessions, he tilted rightwards on topics like energy and migration while holding the line against the AfD’s radicalism.
Indeed, that the CDU and SPD look set to retain power in their respective states will marginally relieve the pressure on the federal government in Berlin, in which the two parties cohabit unhappily. But the future of the “grand coalition” remains uncertain. Struggling in the polls and riven by splits, the SPD is about to begin an internal contest for a new leader, having defenestrated the previous one after a poor European election result in May.
In the meantime, the AfD’s success in eastern Germany has fuelled an anxious national conversation about the persistence of the country’s east-west divide. November 9th will mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. What ought to be a moment to celebrate German unity looks increasingly like an occasion to highlight its divisions.
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