The Alternative for Germany party’s (AfD) success in two state elections has piled new pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s fractious government.
The success has left Germany’s main opposition party facing political contortions to find a way to govern a pair of eastern regions without involving the far-right party.
AfD became the first far-right party to win a state election in post-war Germany in Thuringia on Sunday under one of its hardest-right figures, Bjorn Hocke.
In neighbouring Saxony, it finished only just behind the mainstream conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which leads the national opposition. Voters punished the three parties in Mr Scholz’s governing coalition, which took well under 15% of the vote between them.
Deep discontent with a national government notorious for infighting, inflation and a weak economy, anti-immigration sentiment and scepticism toward German military aid for Ukraine are among the factors that contributed to support for populist parties in the formerly communist east, which is less prosperous than western Germany.
A new party founded by a prominent leftist was the second big winner on Sunday – and will probably be needed to form state governments since no-one is prepared to govern with AfD.
The debacle for the governing parties added to awful performances in the European Parliament election in June for Mr Scholz’s coalition, and it is not obvious that they have any recipe for turning things around with Germany’s next national election due in just over a year.
Another state election on September 22 in an eastern region – Brandenburg, which unlike the two that voted Sunday is currently led by Mr Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats – could add to their embarrassment.
Voters “wanted to send a signal to Berlin above all,” Jens Spahn, a senior CDU legislator, told ZDF television. “They want to send a signal to the (coalition) that the chancellor no longer has their confidence. Olaf Scholz is the face of failure in Thuringia and Saxony too.”
But the two elections also bring difficult decisions for the CDU, which leads national polls.
AfD holds now more than a third of the seats, at least in Thuringia’s state legislature – which would, for example, allow it to block appointments of judges to the regional constitutional court – and that will make it hard to build workable governments.
The party’s strength in the east has pushed other parties into unconventional coalitions as far back as 2016, but Sunday’s results took that to a new level.
In Thuringia, even a previously improbable combination of the CDU, Mr Scholz’s party and the new leftist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance lacks a majority.
To get one, the conservatives would also need help from the Left Party, which is descended from East Germany’s communist rulers and led the outgoing state government. So far, they have refused to work with it.