In Germany, the further rise of the far right was expected – every poll had predicted as much. What was not expected, however, was that revelations of alleged corruption and involvement of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) with the Russian and Chinese governments would apparently matter so little to its voters. Though the resulting gains – the AfD jumped to 16% from 11% in 2019 – were overall more modest than looked probable in the spring, across east Germany the far right came out ahead of all other parties.
Neither did it seem to worry the AfD base much that Germany’s domestic intelligence services had declared the party “under suspicion of extremism”. Quite the contrary: when asked in a TV poll whether their vote was mainly a protest against the red-green-liberal government or out of affiliation with the AfD’s core beliefs, a large majority opted for the latter.
The so-called traffic-light coalition suffered a crushing defeat, losing out to the conservative CDU/CSU opposition – a major blow for Social Democrat chancellor Olaf Scholz. No German government in recent years has been as unpopular as this one. On Sunday night, we began to hear the first demands for a vote of confidence. If Scholz’s rather indolent grin after learning the results is any indication, he will do no such thing. Still, with French president Emmanuel Macron calling for new elections and the German government appearing as weak as it did, the centre of Europe looks pretty shaky indeed.
The two issues that seem to have driven the further rise of the far right – migration and the rejection of the green agenda – stand in uneasy connection. It seems unpalatable to many people that the German Greens suggest we can stop the Earth from further warming, but it is impossible for us to exercise control over who enters the country. What seemed entirely doable, even mandatory, during the last European election in 2019 – remember Greta? Remember the Green Deal? – now apparently sounds to many voters like an elitist pipe dream. The fact that the German Greens are also Ukraine’s staunchest allies may well have contributed to the overwhelming success of the AfD in the east.