Berlin’s ruling coalition parties are facing a potential historic weekend wipeout, as eastern voters embrace populist parties in a recalibration of Germany’s political landscape.
Voters in Saxony and Thuringia choose new parliaments on Sunday, with final polls showing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) will claim at least 30 per cent of the vote in both states. The new left-right populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) is on course to take up to 18 per cent.
After three years of crises and infighting in Berlin’s federal government, the ruling Social Democrats (SPD) of Olaf Scholz and the Greens will be lucky to return to the two regional parliaments in Dresden and Erfurt. Their liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) coalition partner is on course to crash out of both state parliaments entirely.
The SPD is balanced in polls just one point above the 5 per cent parliamentary hurdle in both states. Given that, and the chancellor’s 33 per cent approval rating, local SPD leaders asked him to stay out of sight.
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Even the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), in power in Saxony since 1990 and steady on 33 per cent, has the AfD breathing down its neck on 30 per cent.
The CDU minister president of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, traditionally a conservative voice in his party, has toughened up his law-and-order rhetoric still further to compete with the AfD’s migration messaging.
Mr Kretschmer wants Germany to cut its asylum numbers by 90 per cent, from 300,000 last year, warning that the system is “about to implode”.
[ Good employment news for Saxony at a time of political uncertaintyOpens in new window ]
“We have to sort out this massive migration, but in a decent way,” Mr Kretschmer told a rally in Leipzig. “From a Christian point of view alone, if someone needs help, you have to act and speak with empathy. We have enough populists.”
The far-right AfD has promised to halt illegal migration, flagging on election posters the term “remigration” which, for some party officials and voters, includes the expulsion of non-ethnic German citizens.
On Friday, Thuringia’s AfD leader Björn Höcke flagged the “hypothetical possibility” that the state, population 2.1 million, should close its borders to migrants.
“If the federal government doesn’t protect us then we have to protect ourselves,” he said.
Given Germany’s traditionally large postal vote, analysts say it is unclear how or if Sunday’s final result will be affected by last Friday’s deadly knife attack in Solingen. A failed Syrian asylum seeker is accused of fatally stabbing three and injuring eight.
After months of dispute, and days of political pressure, the Scholz coalition has presented new proposals to ban knives on public transport and improve co-ordination of police and intelligence services.
SPD interior minister Nancy Faeser will cut to a legal minimum state supports for asylum seekers in Germany who entered the EU via another member state.
Even the Green politicians, previously opposed to returning people to Afghanistan and Syria, are now calling for a “refugee policy watershed”.
On Friday morning, a long-planned charter flight departed Leipzig for Kabul carrying 28 convicted Afghan nationals, the first such deportations from Germany since the Taliban takeover in 2021.
Security and energy concerns over the Ukraine-Russia war are where the BSW, founded last September and lead by ex-Left politician Sahra Wagenknecht, hopes to score on Sunday.
In campaign appearances, she has attacked German weapons deliveries to Ukraine and plans to host US mid-range missiles.
Dr Wagenknecht is open to political co-operation with the CDU in Saxony – if it speaks out against German arms for Ukraine – and insists her alliance will not help AfD “hatemongers” into power.
“You can’t work with people like that,” she insisted on Friday, hours after a paint attack during a rally.
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