Why is the far-right AfD party’s victory in a German regional election significant?

How did the AfD achieve this victory? What role does the party play in German politics? What is the significance of AfD’s win?

How did AfD become a prominent political party in Germany?

The AfD, previously the Electoral Alternative 2013, was founded in 2013 by Bernd Lucke, Alexander Gauland, Frauke Petry and Konrad Adam, a Eurosceptic band of economists, opposed to the then-German government’s decision to bail out poorer European countries from the financial crisis that had engulfed the entire continent.

As a record 1.3 million refugees – escaping persecution and mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan – sought asylum in Europe, the AfD rode on a wave of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim sentiments to make its presence known nationally. By 2016, it had won seats in nine out of 16 regional elections in Germany.

The party debuted in the German Bundestag in parliamentary elections in 2017, winning 94 of the 709 seats, and finishing third behind the CDU-CSU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). This was preceded by months of campaigning by the AfD using anti-Islamophobic posters and paraphernalia, with even a chapter in its manifesto titled “Islam is not a part of Germany”.

The party has doubled down on these views in the years since, even campaigning for Dexit – German Brexit – in the 2021 parliamentary elections. While its presence reduced significantly, its performance in Thuringia and Saxony could indicate the possibility of a major comeback in next year’s elections to the Bundestag.

Why has the AfD become so popular?

* Resonance with its extremist messaging: Identified as extremist in some German states, the AfD has found a ready audience for its xenophobic and anti-Muslim messaging with some voters. A nurse attending a party meeting in Brandenburg this February was reportedly glad the party was speaking for her and told CNN, “I’m glad that someone is taking care of all this scum that has spread here in our country, in our beautiful Germany…”

The Economist particularly identifies the depopulating, ageing areas of east Germany as vulnerable to such messaging, and attributes this in part to the “reputation for extremism” of these regions.

Members of the party have even sought to distort the significance of the Holocaust over the years, with AfD leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke in 2017 even calling the Holocaust memorial in Berlin a “monument of shame” in German history.

AfD is also the only German party to endorse climate change denial, seeing it as the third major policy issue after Euroscepticism and immigration.

* Capitalising on regional economic disparity: AfD’s embrace of ‘ordoliberalism,’ a brand of capitalism that combines economic liberalism with an authoritarian government based on strong national identity and sovereignty, has resonated well with voters in east Germany. A 2019 paper explains how the party draws on anti-establishmentarian rhetoric to present itself as the sole representative of the people against the “corrupt elite” (Ralf Havertz, “Right-Wing Populism and Neoliberalism in Germany: The AfD’s Embrace of Ordoliberalism”, New Political Economy)

Also of note is the lopsided nature of economic progress, with the post-communist east German regions lagging behind the west: A 2019 Pew Research Center report recorded that residents of these provinces enjoy a worse quality of life, marked by higher unemployment, lower incomes and lesser productivity than west Germany.

Sunday’s results are a testament to discontent in the region with the central government’s inefficacy in addressing inflation, economic stagnation and rising fuel costs.

What comes next for Germany?

* Identification and possible disbarment as an extremist organisation: The AfD’s progress has stoked fears country-wide about the rise of the far-right, and that the country has not learned from its troubled past.

Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution is empowered to identify and thwart the progress of extremist parties and has already identified the Saxony-Anhalt AfD as a right-wing extremist group, pending a formal declaration.

This position was upheld by a court in Münster on May 13: “At least a significant part of the AfD” would “grant German citizens with a migration background only a legally devalued status” should it ascend to power.

* A shift to the extremes: Sunday’s results mark a severe blow to the beleaguered SPD-led coalition in power, which has since 2021, been battered with rampant infighting on policy issues, as well as countrywide discontent on its clean energy policy and immigration concerns. If this trend continues, the SPD seems poised to cede more ground to populist parties on both ends of the political spectrum.

The success of AfD’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has already led centrist parties, including the SPD, to adopt similar stances, a far cry from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s championing of open borders.

* The rise of the far-left: Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the SPD on Monday (September 2) urged regional parties to maintain a firewall against the AfD to prevent them from entering government.

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This may be possible for now as the eponymous BSW alliance led by Sahra Wagenknecht, which finished third in the two races on Sunday, seems poised to ally with the CDU to form the government. The AfD would still be a thorn in their side, blocking legislations that need a two-thirds majority to pass.