Far-right wins regional election for first time in Thuringia

The German far right won its first regional election in Thuringia on Sunday 1^is September. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, led by Björn Höcke, won the election, according to initial estimates, which give it 30.5% to 33.5% of the vote.

In neighbouring Saxony, the party is neck and neck with the conservative CDU for first place, according to exit polls, with 30% to 31.5% of the vote. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats have suffered another electoral setback, with an estimated score of between 6.5% and 8.5% in both states.

An AfD victory in a regional election is a first since the post-war period, although it is unlikely that the party will lead a government, as the other parties refuse to form a coalition with it. However, it further weakens the chancellor’s unpopular coalition government with the Greens and the liberal FDP, a year before the 2025 general election.

The Greens are leaving the Thuringian parliament and the FDP liberals would no longer be represented in any of the regional assemblies. Thuringia and Saxony, which have important prerogatives in education and security, could be governed by broad, heterogeneous alliances of the right and the left.

Knife attack

The elections in both states came just over a week after the triple stabbing murder of a Syrian man in the western city of Solingen shocked the country and reignited a heated debate over immigration. AfD leaders have sought to capitalize on the shock of the attack, accusing successive federal governments of sowing the seeds of discord. « chaos ».

The alleged attacker, suspected of having links to the jihadist organisation Islamic State (IS), had managed to avoid a deportation order. Under pressure, the Scholz government announced a tightening of the rules on carrying weapons and immigration controls.

The AfD has won several electoral victories in recent months and achieved its best ever score in the European elections in June. The former GDR has proven fertile ground for the party, due to persistent inequalities since reunification in 1990 and a deep demographic crisis linked to the departure of young people to other regions, despite a renewed economic attractiveness.

An essentially Eurosceptic party when it was founded in 2013, the AfD became more radical after the major migration crisis of 2015, the Covid-19 pandemic and then the Russian war in Ukraine, which weakened Europe’s leading economic power and caused inflation to soar. It has won several electoral victories in recent months, obtaining its best score in history in the European elections in June, winning over so many with its virulent speeches against immigration and calling for an end to arms deliveries to Ukraine, a very popular position in these regions of the former communist GDR where the fear of war remains deeply rooted.