Germany’s Far Right Sees Its Opening (Again)

BERLIN—Is Germany ready for the populist, far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to govern?

In the decade since the party first entered the German political scene, it has won seats in the Bundestag and in state-level parliaments across the country—but, in large part due to long-standing taboos against collaborating with the far right, it had never won any executive governing positions. Although there had been a number of close calls in AfD strongholds at the local and regional levels, particularly in eastern Germany, where the party does best, AfD candidates always fell short of a majority in runoff votes against other parties.

But that changed with a pair of back-to-back local-level elections in recent weeks: On Sunday, the town of Raguhn-Jessnitz in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt elected Germany’s first-ever AfD full-time mayor. Hannes Loth, a 42-year-old lawmaker, defeated an independent candidate backed by other parties with 51 percent of the vote. Just a week earlier in Sonneberg, a small district in the nearby state of Thuringia, AfD candidate Robert Sesselmann became the first candidate from the far-right party to win a district administrator’s post, taking almost 53 percent of the vote against a candidate from the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Taken together, the two victories represent a symbolic, unprecedented shift for the AfD at a time when the party’s fortunes are on the rise nationally—and are being seen as a bellwether ahead of key elections in three eastern German states in 2024.

“The new normal: We are a people’s party,” AfD national spokesperson Tino Chrupalla tweeted Sunday after the results in Raguhn-Jessnitz came in. (The term “people’s party,” or Volkspartei in German, has typically been used to refer to the big-tent centrist parties, such as the CDU and the Social Democratic Party, or SPD.) “Step by step, we’re bringing about a change for the better and implementing our policies for the interests of the citizens.”

Admittedly, Raguhn-Jessnitz and Sonneberg are not a reflection of the political dynamics at the national level: Both are small constituencies in the states where the AfD is strongest. The five states that make up eastern Germany, which also made up the German Democratic Republic until Germany’s reunification in 1990, still vote differently from their western German counterparts. Factors such as the region’s economic and industrial lag, greater skepticism of immigration and refugees, a stronger affinity toward Russia, and a less entrenched set of mainstream parties have helped give the AfD an edge in the east. Still, in a country whose Nazi past has led to stronger guardrails against the far right than in some other European countries, a national government including the AfD remains extremely unlikely.

Germany’s domestic intelligence service has deemed the AfD a “suspected case” of anti-constitutional behavior, and other parties across the spectrum say (at least at the national level) they won’t work with the AfD. Top AfD politicians regularly espouse all manner of xenophobic rhetoric, and the lines between official party structures—particularly among the party’s radical wing—and Germany’s loose constellation of right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi groups have become blurred in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic, which gave rise to a series of regular anti-government protests and conspiracy narratives, helped radicalize the party and its supporters further.

Still, the fact that the two local votes came on the heels of record-high support in the polls for the AfD—the party is now polling at an average of 19 percent, tying for second place with the governing center-left Social Democrats—is causing alarm within the German political sphere. Over the course of the last nine months, AfD leaders have instrumentalized rising inflation and energy prices, an influx of refugees from Ukraine, and strident opposition to the current German government’s climate policies to build up support in the polls. The party’s recent successes have even led AfD leaders to suggest the idea of running its first-ever candidate for chancellor in the next federal election, slated for 2025.

Kai Arzheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Mainz who has studied the rise of the AfD, said the economic and political fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine—combined with the struggles of the current government, led by the SPD, the Greens, and the pro-business Free Democrats—is helping to fuel the party’s rise in the polls. “The AfD announced last summer that they intend to benefit from these crises and that they would try to exploit them as much as possible,” he said. “And that’s what they have done.”

Thomas Krüger, the head of Germany’s Federal Agency for Civic Education, told the German media organization RND that the recent AfD victories were “unsettling” and demonstrate that the party is no longer just a protest movement: “The voters want this party. … The situation is serious,” he said. “Certain positions that are unacceptable and incompatible with democratic principles have become established in parts of the society.”

Although the AfD’s newfound momentum is causing a certain level of panic in German politics, Germany is far from unique: Far-right parties are on the rise across Europe. In neighboring Austria, the populist, far-right Freedom Party of Austria has led the polls since January and recently joined several state-level governments. Since last fall, like-minded parties have ended up leading governments, as in Italy, under the Brothers of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, and become formal or informal junior governing partners in right-wing coalitions, as in Finland and Sweden. France’s National Rally, under the second generation of Le Pens, continues to cause ulcers every general election—and now has challengers from even further right. And in Spain, which heads to the polls in parliamentary elections later this month, the ultra-right Vox party is on track to gain seats and potentially end up in the country’s next governing coalition.

What remains to be seen is whether the AfD’s current highs are sustainable. Like its counterparts around Europe, the AfD has had its polling ups and downs in recent years; a great deal can happen between now and the next federal election, which is still more than two years away.

Regardless, the local victories and higher support continue the normalizing effect the party has sought on the local and regional levels in recent years—all with the explicit goal of chipping away at the so-called cordon sanitaire between it and the other parties and eventually being part of government on the regional, or even national, level.

“It’s a slippery slope. There’s a worry that it becomes normal to have the AfD in a position of power,” Arzheimer said. “The idea is to build a base in local politics, something the AfD had been missing thus far—but they’re catching up now.”