Germany — the preeminent European country for the past century, third in world GDP, the biggest economy in Europe, and pivotal to the fortunes of the European Union — voted to elect a new parliament last month amid general voter dissatisfaction.
Immigration, economic slowdown, and security concerns dominated the election agenda, with an energy crisis, inflation, and housing shortages contributing to anxiety.
On immigration, about 25 percent of Germany’s population has a migrant background, but during the past year the previous welcoming consensus has shifted sharply negative.
The sentiment now prevails that integration and cultural change impact national identity — and welfare measures for immigrants compromised the benefits for Germans, especially because the Ukraine war impacted national spending with cutbacks across all sectors, except defence.
Economic and social differences between former East and West Germany fueled general resentment. After reunification in 1990, the East lost jobs and manpower to the West, stoked resentment against western elites, bred insecurity among the middle and working class and fear of social decline.
With termination of cheap Russian gas, crumbling infrastructure and failure to invest in innovation, there was economic gloom, frustration, and lack of confidence in democracy.
The second wave of refugees from Ukraine following the Arabs and Afghans of 2014-15 exacerbated other undercurrents.
Four in five of Germany's 60 million voted, reflecting how energised Germans were in this election. The results were:
Christian Democrat Union/Christian Social Union [CDU/CSU]: 208 seats won with 28.6 percent votes
Alternative for Germany [AfD]: 152 seats (20.8 percent votes)
Social Democrats [SPD]: 120 seats (16.4 percent votes)
Greens: 85 seats (11.6 percent votes)
Die Linke [Left]: 64 seats (8.8 percent votes)
The far-left Sahra Wagennecht Alliance (BSW) at 4.97 percent missed the five percent cut-off only by 0.03 percentage points. Compared to the last election, the SPD lost 86 seats and Greens 33, AfD gained 69, the Left 25, and the CDU/CSU 11.
The emergence of smaller parties, the rise of the far-right AfD, and the increasing influence of the Left herald changing dynamics in German politics.
New Wave of Unconventional Female Leaders
The elections were also a watershed in leadership dynamics.
German politics—used to the matronly and staid Angela Merkel as chancellor for 16 years—were shaken by the personality of women activists like AfD chief Alice Weidel who is in a same-sex relationship and has two children with a Sri Lankan woman in Switzerland, speaks Chinese, and was the star on social media.
Her online popularity is even bigger than Heidi Reichinnek, the tattooed 36-year-old co-leader of the Left. Both women are immensely popular with the 18-24 age group, with Reichinnek’s rhetoric leading the Left to 64 seats.
The third female leader is Sahra Wagenknecht, who split from the Left and founded her own even more radical party, BSW. Her popularity soared for a time but fell marginally short of seats in parliament.
Christian Democrat Merz as next Chancellor
The conservative Christian Democrats under Friedrich Merz will lead the next coalition government. Unlike India, coalition arrangements in Europe require lengthy discussion and binding undertakings on every matter likely to be legislated.
Merz will need the backing of at least 316 against his present 208 and partnership either with Greens and/or Left would fall short. Merz rules out allying with AfD, saying ‘we have fundamentally different views on foreign policy, security policy, regarding Europe, the euro, NATO.’
Therefore, the outgoing Social Democrats government is the only possible coalition partner if another election is to be avoided. The CDU/CSU and SPD have governed in coalitions four times since World War II, but economic policies will prove knotty and Merz may need to make concessions over issues like immigration.
Merz favours cutting taxes and higher defence expenditure, but the question is how to afford this, since reductions in welfare would probably be rejected by the SPD.
The only solution would be to abandon constitutional restrictions on government borrowing, and Merz and Social Democrats have agreed with Greens on a €500-billion infrastructure fund and to reset borrowing limitations in order to support an economy in recession for the past two years. This would also boost German ability to help Ukraine since it is the biggest donor of military aid to Ukraine after USA.
China is one of Germany’s top trading partners and an industrial competitor as Germany’s manufacturing-driven economy stagnates. Merz promises a hawkish stance on China, warning that investing there comes ‘with great risk’ for German companies.
Considered pro-Zionist, he refers to China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran being an ‘axis of autocracies.' He questions the future of NATO and demands that Europe boost its defences – ‘my absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.’
But the German army's battle-readiness is less than it was in 2022 and even if Merz boosts defence spending, it will be hamstrung for years by a lack of air defence, artillery and soldiers, with land forces down to a readiness of scarcely 50 percent.
Polarisation by Region, Gender, Age
The election showed Germany polarised on most issues, though polarisation is not new to Germany. Apart from the East-West divide, there is a gender divide; the AfD and CDU/CSU are popular with men, the Left with women. Age is another divide; youth deserted the established parties; among 18-24s the Left secured 25 percent and AfD 21 percent.
There are deep concerns about migration and the sense of relegation to second-class citizens is driving support for AfD in the east together with opposition to military support for Ukraine.
All three parties in the former SPD/Greens/liberal FDP coalition lost ground in the election. The liberals lost their representation, and both other parties fared badly through the SPD will perforce be part of the incoming coalition.
The CDU/CSU promise of economic changes, reduction of bureaucracy and support for research and technology will be hard to implement. If Ukraine eventually joins the EU, the union’s financial obligations will be immense, and the burden on Germany will prove as much as 25 percent of the bill.
Alternative for Germany – The Future?
With the Ukraine war going badly and poor relations between the EU and USA, the Merz coalition will be weak. The real winner in the election was AfD, reflecting the current European political trend favouring the far-right. In parliament only since 2017, AfD is in second place to CDU and its support will increase — Weidel said if the first-placed conservatives chose to govern with left-wing parties rather than AfD, ‘next time, we’ll come first’.
AfD is the leading political force in eastern Germany, while its polar opposite the Left won Berlin for the first time.
With loyalty to the mainstream parties leaking, the showing by AfD signals important changes in how German youth engage with the Nazi past, the Holocaust and questions of collective guilt and responsibility.
AfD is spreading in the west too and its support coincided with a series of attacks in past months allegedly by immigrants.
AfD proposes a controversial policy called ‘re-migration’, which it defines as deporting migrants who commit crimes, but the term can also refer to mass deportation of migrants and their descendants which echo Hitlerite pogroms and causes Weidel some difficulty with other far-right leaders in Europe such as Marine le Pen.
As in other western countries, immigration policy is now a foremost political issue, ahead even of the economy, wages, inflation, climate change, energy and the Ukraine war. A German poll found that 76 percent of Germans are discontent with any accommodative immigration policies.
AfD has policies similar to those of US President Donald Trump, and is supported by Elon Musk and JD Vance. Its platform calls for repatriation of asylum seekers, even some foreigners with residency rights, and non-assimilated citizens. It opposes the EU asylum system, the Euro currency, the Paris climate change accord and is anti-woke and anti-establishment. The label ‘far-right’ is rejected by Alice Weidel, who insists she heads a conservative, libertarian movement.
The AfD is now undeniably a mainstream party. What that will mean for Germany and Europe, time will tell.
(Krishnan Srinivasan is a former Foreign Secretary of India. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)