Germany is living in complex times. In September, three elections were held in the states of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR): Thuringia, Saxony, and Brandenburg, representing just over 10% of the 84 million Germans. The results confirmed what the polls had been announcing: the rise of the extreme right wing represented by the Alternative for Germany (AFD) party, which won in Thuringia and came second in Saxony and Brandenburg. The weakening of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), which heads the government, and of the coalition that accompanies it, was also confirmed. The results in the first two states caused a substantial change in the government's migration policy, which will have repercussions throughout the European Union (EU), as it suspended for six months the free movement of persons (Schengen) by placing controls at the country's nine borders. The celebration in Brandenburg for the SPD victory has a taste of defeat as they only beat the extreme right by a point and a fraction.

Most Germans are anxious about the uncertainty caused by the economic downturn in 2023 together with a very weak recovery expected to reach only 0.2% this year. The unending war in Eastern Europe consumes resources earmarked for social spending, research, or culture, which are redirected to the Ministry of Defense. In addition to the massive immigration, mainly from Ukraine today, there is also immigration from the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Figures from the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis) indicate that between 2022 and 2023, 2,215,000 immigrants entered the country, in a country where the housing deficit reaches 700,000. Added to this are concerns about climate change, floods, energy policy or visions about the future of the EU and NATO, which dominate the political agenda of the government and the concerns of citizens. All this has led 79% of the German population to declare that they are little or not at all satisfied with the government headed by Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, according to the ARD DeutschlandTrend survey published on September 6.

The coalition headed by Scholz, formed by the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Alliance 90/The Greens (PV) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) or liberals, would have reached a historic low of 36%, according to the same poll. The recent election results confirmed the growth of the hard right, with its party “Alternative for Germany” (AfD), which obtained the first majority in Thuringia with 32.84% of the votes, second in Saxony, with 30.63% and in Brandenburg with 29.2% (provisional). The Christian Democrats (CDU) won in Saxony, came second in Thuringia and third in Brandenburg. The SPD came fifth in Thuringia with only 6.05% of the votes, fourth in Saxony with 7.33% and first in Brandenburg with 30.9%, beating the AfD by just over one point. The situation is tougher for the Liberals, who did not reach 5% in any of the three states, while the Greens only managed it in Saxony, scraping 5.1%. Neither at the state nor at the federal level can one enter Parliament if one does not reach 5% of the votes.

Some analysts point out that the recent vote in the East is not representative of Germany as a whole, since it covers only 10.1% of the population. However, all the German and European press has highlighted the fact that for the first time a party with a clear agenda of vindication of values that were considered to have disappeared, including nods to Nazism, has triumphed in Thuringia, and that it is the second force in Saxony and Brandenburg. There is another particular characteristic: the uneasiness is more evident in the east of the country, in the former communist zone, where young people consider themselves different from the rest of their compatriots in the west, while many older people remember the security offered by the old system. Today they complain that they are not properly considered, that wages for the same type of work are lower in the east, while businessmen protest about the price of energy, which hits the entire population.

In reality, what exists is resentment or a sort of invisible wall that continues to divide because of what their parents or they themselves lived through. Nobody likes to talk, or they don't know, about their grandparents' Nazi past or collaboration with the Stasi. In cities like Dresden, Leipzig, Jena, or Weimar, there is very little multiculturalism, and it is one of the things they want to maintain, keeping immigrants away, which would explain the constant rise of the AfD, especially among young voters. For their part, the historical centre-left, the SPD and Die Linke (The Left), have had to face a new force emerging from the latter political party, headed by a woman: Sahra Wagenknecht, 55 years old, who together with a group of militants left Die Linke, designating the new alliance with her own name, Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), officially created less than a year ago, on October 23, 2023.

Its slogan is “For Reason and Justice”, reaching 15.77% of the vote in Thuringia, 11.81% in Saxony and 13.5% (provisional) in Brandenburg. For its part, the Green Party, founded in 1980 by dissatisfied SPD militants and which raised a discourse of environmental protection, rejection of nuclear energy, the deployment of U.S. missiles and support for pacifism (principles from which today they are distant), disappeared electorally in two of these states. The question is whether the SPD, i.e. the historic German social democracy, heir to the socialist tradition of the end of the 19th century, will be able to recover and win back votes in view of the next federal elections to be held in the last week of September 2025.

From 2002 to 2021 Germany has faced six federal elections. Four times the CDU has won and twice the SPD. The German political system requires the formation of government coalitions at the federal and state levels in order to achieve a majority in Parliament. The SPD, which obtained 38.5% of the votes in 2002, only reached 24% in 2021. The Green Party and The Left have split off from its trunk, and from the latter, the BSW alliance. One of the explanations for the fall of the traditional parties, CDU and SPD, is that they have not provided answers to the concerns of broad social sectors, such as the immigration issue, or that they have not been able to curb the growing inequality that has weakened the broad middle class. This has pushed the disgruntled electorate to move towards the extremes.

A deeper analysis might show that there are in fact no substantial variations between the SPD and the CDU. Both parties, with nuances obviously, share a similar vision of the social market economy and both were gradually co-opted by neoliberal principles, along with aligning themselves firmly to the United States. They have governed under the “Grand Coalition” formula on several occasions, the first being in 1966-1969, when the liberals abandoned the CDU and the Social Christian leader Ludwig Erhard called the SPD, led by Willy Brandt, into government.

The last ones were between 2005-2009, when the CDU under Angela Merkel's leadership defeated Gerhard Schröder's SPD by 1% of the vote and then Merkel called in the Social Democrats. The formula was repeated between 2017 to 2021 again with Merkel, after the defeat of her liberal allies who did not reach 5% of the votes, so she again incorporated the SPD. This electoral promiscuity, which the SPD and the CDU have used indistinctly with the smaller parties, has also contributed to the alienation and weariness of many people with traditional politics.

Political stability and economic leadership have made Germany the main European power, but both parties have provoked the disaffection of their supporters that have originated on the right the birth of AfD and on the left first the Greens, then The Left and now the emergence of BSW. The coincidences between AfD and the newly created BSW are striking: the extreme right and the so-called “Conservative Left” basically coincide on two priorities: curbing immigration and cutting off support for Ukraine. Some of AfD's principles are of dubious democratic commitment and it harbours sympathisers of the Nazi past, as one of its main exponents has been accused: Björn Höcke, who has been convicted by the courts as a “fascist, on verifiable facts.” However, not all its voters can be labeled Nazis. It is the vacuum left by the traditional parties to the everyday concerns of ordinary people that has moved the needle in their favour.

For her part, leader Sahra Wagenknecht, a rising star in German politics today, has an extensive academic curriculum. She has been a federal parliamentarian since 2009, married to former SPD leader Oskar Lafontaine, who in 2005 resigned from political office and from the party where he had been a militant for 40 years, due to the “abandonment of principles and having assumed neoliberal positions”. He became spokesman for The Left (Die Linke) until 2022, when he withdrew, stating that “they were no longer a real alternative for the country”. Wagenknecht leaves no one indifferent with his blunt opinions, and today he holds the key to the formation of the governments in the three states. He arouses distrust in sectors of the social democratic centre and conservatives, but he has generated an emerging force that will have to be corroborated in the federal elections of 2025.

Today it disputes issues such as immigration and the end of aid to Ukraine with the AfD, which is a giant leap for left-wing militants on the migration issue. She also points out, as a condition for the formation of government alliances, that the installation of medium-range missiles on German soil, which the United States has requested and which has already been authorised by Scholz, must be renounced. She is also in favour of restoring relations with Russia and resuming the purchase of gas. She is a woman of character, of strong leadership, of Marxist formation, but who indicates that she is not in favour of total nationalisation or centralised planning. A great admirer of Rosa Luxemburg, somewhat nostalgic for some aspects of East German life, opposed to NATO and in 2017 questioned Germany's continued membership in this military organisation.

In short, for Wagenknecht the recomposition of the left is a task that starts with listening to the real concerns of the people, of the working class, of pensioners, and compromises not only different ideological or geopolitical visions, but also has to do with Germany's membership and leading role in the European Union. In a certain way this is also valid for the conservative right, where AfD is taking away part of the electorate from the conservative CDU. Ultimately, and as is almost always the case, the economy will be a determining factor in next year's elections.

The uneasiness due to the consequences of the war in Ukraine, reflected in the rise of energy prices and the multiplier effect it has, will put pressure on the Scholz government, who hopes to be a candidate again, to relax the intransigent position it has maintained with respect to Russia. BSW has dragged in these three elections an important part of the vote of sectors of the SPD, Greens and Die Linke, so its effort will now be to demonstrate that it can stand up as a great force that vindicates the principles of the historical left.