Image Source: Christian Wiediger, Unsplash
By Fani Kantzavelos, Staff Writer
On February 23rd, Germany held elections to determine its members of parliament for the next four years. The party most likely to assume chancellorship, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU), formally known as CDU/CSU, won the most votes, standing at 208 seats.
However, the party placing second is the Alternative for Germany (AfD), known for its far-right rhetoric and expression of ideas reminiscent of Nazism. These results affirm the rising right-wing trend in politics globally, especially in Europe, and the pressing need for a productive coalition between the CDU/CSU and the party coming in third, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
The German electoral system is a mixed-member proportional representation (PR) system, which simply means that voters cast two votes: a first one for their preferred candidate that will represent their electoral district and a second one for their preferred party in their federal state. There is a 5% threshold of the electorate that parties need to capture to enter the Bundestag, otherwise known as the German parliament.
As of now, Germany’s parliament holds 630 seats. Formerly, the Bundestag was expansionary, allowing parties that had more directly-elected candidates in the first vote than seats from the second vote to gain a seat in parliament. This appears to be an attempt to curb the rise of extremism in parliament.
Germany’s electoral model can lead to strategic voting. For the second vote, voters are more likely to cast their ballot for the major parties, the CDU/CSU and the SPD, to ensure their vote “counts” towards a result in parliament.
However, the SPD achieved a historically low result in the German elections, while the CDU/CSU only won by a margin of around 8% against AfD. This marks a key struggle in German politics as voters have either flocked to the far-left or far-right, possibly foreshadowing political instability and consolidating right-wing ideology in the country. The far-left parties, namely The Left (Die Linke) and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), are “fringe” parties politically, with the former being considered a far-left party, and oftentimes also populist, and the latter being fiscally left but conservative in terms of migration and pro-Russia. Together with AfD, The Left and BSW captured around 35% of the total vote, highlighting a trend within the German electorate to vote outside of the traditional, main party lines.
The rise of the AfD can be attributed to a shift in votes from the left to the right, particularly in East Germany. Unemployment and income inequality disproportionately affect East Germany, due to historical factors, a productivity gap with its counterpart in the West coupled with subsidies fueling this “culture,” low entrepreneurship, and lower education levels compared to West Germany. This is highly correlated to the fact that most votes for the AfD were concentrated in the same area. Sharply-felt grievances in East Germany resonate with the AfD’s campaign promise that it is a viable alternative for a Germany prioritizing (ethnic) Germans. Its strong opposition to immigration and its promises to restore affordability echo similar sentiments in the aforementioned region, creating a stronger voter base for the party.
The AfD’s extremist, xenophobic, and increasingly overt Nazi rhetoric has not been a recent phenomenon. In 2016, the party’s manifesto stated “Islam doesn’t belong to Germany.” In 2021, Björn Höcke, a member of the AfD, was convicted of publicly repeating a slogan used by Adolf Hitler, “Everything for Germany,” (Alles für Deutschland), which is banned from use in the country. The party’s leader, Alice Weidel, has doubled down on her dismissive comments toward the Holocaust, deeming Germany’s remembrance culture a “guilt cult,” a statement with Nazi connotations.
The AfD’s second-place electoral result signals growing political volatility. This ideological shift to the far right reinforces the need for unifying change in Germany. The movements for “change” that exist are not attracting the same voter base the AfD is, even if the majority of Germans voted on the fringe in this past election. There must be no room for bigotry and extremism, which have proven destructive for the country and the world in the past.
In the next weeks, the CDU/CSU and the SPD must come to a coalition agreement that allows for a non-extremist majority to lead the Bundestag. Germany’s alternative to improving its current democratic pillars does not lie in the Alternative for Germany, but rather a concerted effort to restore political unity, provide actionable policy solutions to Germans’ concerns in regard to unemployment, inflation, and affordability, and remain a strong member and partner to the European Union.
