The Writing is on the Berlin Wall for Scholz: Radicals Surge in German Elections

By Reuben Gilhooley

The writing is on the Berlin wall for Olaf Scholz: despite a record-breaking turnout of 82.5%, the highest since the 1989 reunification, his Social Democrats have suffered their greatest electoral defeat since 1887, something admitted by Scholz as a “bitter defeat”.

The limping Traffic Light Coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens, and neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP), has come to an unceremonious end following an embarrassing but expected defeat in the recent Federal Election.

Each of the incumbents lost vote share, with the obvious loser being the FDP, who after falling below the 5% threshold needed to hold seats in the Bundestag, have been annihilated from the legislature for the time being. The Greens, while receiving a decreased vote share, have not suffered defeat to the same extent as their coalition partners, with their leader Robert Habeck saying they wanted more, also blaming Merz for their poor result, saying “Merz has boosted the Extremes”.

The Union Party, also known as the Christian Union (CSU in Bavaria, CDU everywhere else), are back on top following a shift away under Friedrich Merz from Merkel’s centrist ideology back to their centre-right roots, achieving 28.5% of the vote, which translates to 208 seats of the necessary 316 for a majority in the Bundestag. Merz’ Union Party was leading in the polls over every coalition partner since mid-2022.

The election has attracted international attention primarily for the ascendent Alternative for Deutschland, AFD, co-led by Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla. Chrupalla is seen to champion the moderate wing of the AFD, advocating for leaving Schengen and pro-Russian foreign policy, compared to the Der Flügel faction led by Thuringian AFD chair Bjorn Höcke, who has used Nazi slogans and advocated for a 1000-year future of Germany, is nostalgic for the pre-war German Empire, called the Berlin Holocaust memorial a “monument of shame”, and wants a “180-degree change in memory policy.”

Alice Weidel’s ideology is far harder to pin down. She is a ‘traditional family values’ pro-natalist agnostic lesbian who lives across the Alpine border with her Civil Partner, a Swiss-Sri Lankan filmmaker, and their two adopted sons. Weidel has attracted the most attention abroad, being seen as the acceptable face of the AFD, having sought out endorsement by Elon Musk, who attended a rally by video-link where he and Weidel branded Hitler to be a communist.

The likely effect of Musk’s links with the AFD on the election ranges from negligible to negative. Core AFD voters will not speak English to a high enough level to engage with Musk’s endorsements. It is plausible that the AFD have been burnt by flying too close to MAGA, as has happened in Canada where, according to recent polling, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have suffered for being seen as ideological fellow-travellers to the MAGA right, including Poilievre appearing for a 100-minute interview with the right-wing commentator Jordan Peterson, amidst a rallying to the flag in the face of American hawkishness.

"Musk’s close relationship with the AFD, in particular Weidel, has enflamed US-German tensions."

In contrast with her co-leader, Weidel is pro-Israel and anti-Russia. Where Chrupalla attended the Russian embassy to celebrate the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, Weidel, a former Goldman-Sachs Banker with a PhD in the Chinese Pension system, refused on the grounds that it was unpatriotic to celebrate the defeat of your country with a former occupying power, in addition to solidarity with her father, who was an Ethnic German born in occupied Upper-Silesia (modern-day Poland) to a Hitler-appointed Nazi judge. However, Weidel advocates for economic relations with Russia, as a self-described Thatcherite.

The long arm of the GDR education system can be clearly seen in the pro-Russian stances of much of the AFD, who have attracted the majority of their support in Eastern German states, which are significantly more economically deprived and show comparatively low support for America and the NATO West. Perhaps with a far shorter history of democracy, when confronted with hardships in the current system, such ideals are less sacred to eastern Germans, opening up to more widespread support for the authoritarian AFD. This phenomenon of nostalgia for East Germany is referred to as Ostalgie, nostalgia for the east which surges under hardship.

The AFD came second overall in the election at a vote share of 20.8%, another expected result following their lead in the polls over every coalition partner since September 2023 as a result of anxieties surrounding the perceived excesses of Environmental and Immigration policy. The party’s base is generally more deprived and less educated than the average voter, with a voter who only completes basic education more than twice as likely to support them than a voter with higher education.

A successor to the dictatorial Socialist Unity Party of Germany, which ruled East Germany from 1946 to 1989, improved their vote share, securing 8.8 percent, whereas the far-left pro-Russian socially conservative BSW narrowly missed the threshold by 0.03% following a last-minute slump in the polls. Die Linke did particularly well with first-time voters and in the 18-24 age bracket, coming first with the AFD in close pursuit. The party did surprisingly well in the capital, with 20% of voters seemingly willing to give their former oppressors another shot at it. Die Linke’s eleventh-hour surge in the polls knocked the BSW, a radical offshoot led by Sahra Wagenknecht, off their threshold (source, source).

Events including the Ukraine War, Nordstream pipeline destruction, and the Israel-Hamas war, as well as domestic issues including stagnant growth, withering manufacturing industry, and high crime rate and inflation, undermined Scholz’s government consistently. In particular, the last few months have been characterised by frequent terror attacks by immigrants, both Islamic and explicitly anti-Islamic in nature.

Merkel’s cozying up to Russia can be to blame for a large element of Scholz’s defeat, although with policy decisions such as continuing Merkel’s nuclear phase-out, some blame ought to be left at Scholz’s door. Overexposure to Russian Oil and Gas undermined German confidence in growth and industry, while soaring energy prices split the coalition between the Greens, who wanted to drive through their environmental policies with high government spending to boost growth, and the Free Democrats, who categorically opposed greater government spending, coming to a head in November when Scholz fired Finance Minister, the Free Democrat Christian Lindner, effectively imploding the coalition and calling an early election by opening an unwinnable no-confidence vote.

Musk’s close relationship with the AFD, in particular Weidel, has enflamed US-German tensions. Musk’s endorsement of the AFD under the de-facto leadership of Weidel, announced in the Sunday paper Welt am Sonntag, was criticised explicitly by rival parties, the German Journalists Association, and much of the media, as well as implicit criticism from President Steinmeier. In addition, the AFD have met with the American Vice President JD Vance, who criticised other German parties for their ironclad Brandmauer, an election pact that forbids other German parties to go into coalition with the far-right.

While coalition talks are ongoing, Scholz will lead a caretaker government with his ministers until an agreement can be reached.

Despite this election being the lowest collective vote share between the two main parties ever, Scholz and Merz are expected to form a two-party Grand Coalition government with the SPD as the junior partners. This is the best possible scenario for Merz, having narrowly missed a three-way coalition due to the FDP and the BSW missing the 5% threshold to hold seats in the Bundestag. Merz can now lead a centrist government.

With Merz unable to form any other two-party government while maintaining the Brandmauer, Scholz is demanding that he retain the Chancellorship as part of the coalition deal, knowing that Merz cannot enter into coalition with the AFD.

Weidel has also criticised the Union for preparing for a coalition with the SPD. She alleges that, in copying the AFD manifesto and then going into coalition with a left-wing partner, the Union has committed the crime of electoral fraud, which has been compared in terms of rhetoric to the right-wing Law and Justice Party in Poland.

When he assumes office, Merz is expected to push back on the US, having pledged to “achieve independence” from Trump amidst criticism from the US right around freedom of speech. Merz is expected to continue the continuation of Pistorius’ increase in German arms stocks but will not be pushing away from the Liberal international order, inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a state visit despite an arrest warrant for his arrest on suspicion of war crimes.

The former Defence Minister Boris Pistorius is expected to lead the SPD in the event of a Scholz resignation, winning widespread support for his prominent hawkish position on rearmament, having been found in a 2024 Poll to be Germany’s most popular politician.

Despite winning the election conclusively, this election is still the third-worst election since 1949 for the Union, as well as being the worst free election for the SPD since 1887.

Image: Flickr