Over the weekend, German voters showed a desire for change.
Germany elected a new government led by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the central right party, to wipe out the Social Democrats on the left. As a result, the CDU was placed in a position to lead the formation of a new governing coalition in Bundestag, the German parliament.
Another headline from the election? Strong performances of the German far-right party, alternative Fool German Land, or AFD. The AFD has shown remarkable support in pre-election polls, and has attracted a lot of attention thanks to Elon Musk's full support.
It's the best show in AFD history, but the party is very controversial in Germany. The new prime minister, Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz, has already said that his party will not form a coalition with the AFD. Growth over the past few years (part of the global revival of far-right parties) has issued warnings among mainstream German political parties who view the AFD as an extremist movement.
This week's results also brought me another surprise. An unexpectedly good show for the leftist Dai Linke party. A few weeks before the election, there were signs that the party had not reached the 5% cutoff to earn a seat in bondage. This weekend, Die Linke won 9% of the vote.
To understand all of that, I explained todayNoel King spoke with Nina Haas, the chief political correspondent at German international broadcaster German Well. King and Haas discussed the significance of CDU victory, how to think about AFD and Die Linke's performance, and where German politics go from here.
Below is an excerpt from the conversation edited for length and transparency. The full podcast has more to offer, including a detailed history of German rights, so listen I explained today You can get podcasts anywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Spotify and more.
There was a big election this weekend in Germany. What is the heading here?
The headline is that conservatives have wiped out the Social Democrats, and we will see a new German government led by conservatives who are still pro-European, a centrist government facing many challenges.
The headline below shows that for the first time in a national generation poll, the far-right party, AFD, was able to get one in five Germans to vote.
Who is the new prime minister?
The new prime minister is Friedrich Merz. He entered politics in the 1990s, then wiped out of political power by a certain Angela Merkel from his same party, and rejoined in politics when Angela Merkel left.
He has always been a fierce critic of Angela Merkel's open door policy, so he has adopted a much more robust attitude towards immigration. This was one of the key issues for him in this campaign.
What other issues did the conservatives do that well this time?
The Germans showed many desires for change, great change. The current government started with a liberal agenda. After that, Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, so they had to make many very tough decisions. The Conservatives were the biggest opposition, so they essentially say that this government will be overwhelmed and that we will deal with all our desire for change.
[Voters] I want to be more clear about immigration. They hope that the German economy will move forward again. And these were the core topics that the Conservatives won with a focus.
So: immigration, the economy, Ukraine. That sounds familiar. Second came this party, AFD, please tell us about it. Where do you come from?
They are a rather young party. They were founded just 10 years ago. They started with a platform that is skeptical of the EU. This was what we wanted to break out of the euro, the common currency here in Europe.
And for many years, they are radical. They went from a party focused on economic monetary policy to an anti-immigrant, pro-Russia, and pro-China party. That's what many people here in Germany say is that this will shake up the fundamental pillars of the liberal democratic institutions we have in this country.
They have people in their ranks that have a very close relationship with the Kremlin. They have a major figure in the East, a history teacher, but Germany says it needs to stop this whining about this short period of time that happened, called the Holocaust. Considering our history, many alarm bells rang out in Germany. Many feel that populism is a reminder of how quickly it connects to real fascism.
That being said, the AFD has called themselves libertarian conservatives. They received a big push in this campaign from Elon Musk. Musk was launched on his own Platform X a few weeks ago and said that only AFD could save Germany. He chatted with their co-leader Alice Weidel for an hour, giving him a lot of visibility on his own platform.
What does their second place finish mean? How much power do they have in the place they did?
They are now the second most powerful political group in Congress, which means they have certain privileges in appointing chairs of the committee. Traditionally the largest opposition group (in this case AFD) can lead a budget committee and influence the committee's meeting agenda. The AFD has also gotten a lot of time to deal with Congress as the second largest group in Congress. So we hear a lot of them.
The country has a system that blocks minorities due to certain fundamental changes in the Basic Law. And you can't do that with AFD alone. But, for example, if the current government wanted to make a fundamental change to the constitution and allow more spending to support Ukraine, AFD along with AFD, Die Linke can now block it. .
So you were better than you expected a far-right and far-left party, Can you hear it?
absolutely. And that is one of the main points of criticism by conservatives, saying that the current government under Olaf Scholz has allowed the fringe to be very strong.
Your new Prime Minister, Merz, has already spoken this morning. What does he say about working with these parties, primarily AFD?
The AFD has no intention of joining the government. It's a very important message to send, and is thought to be too far by all the other Democrats, so I think conservatives have eliminated cooperation with them. Known here as the “firewall”, the firewall still stands for the history of our country.
Currently, the AFD is also very clear that they knew they would not enter the government, but they hope for a volatile German government under Mertz in the coming years. And they are turning to 2029. They say their position is very normalized and could actually enter the government, if not the prime minister.
What will these results mean for Germany over the next year or two?
As a result, Friedrich Merz must enter coalition negotiations very quickly with the Social Democrats and come to quite a deal with them very quickly so that he can form a stable government. I will. He has many challenges before him.
He explicitly warned that Europe needed to move quickly and become independent from the US shortly after the polls were shut down last night. He questioned whether the US would come to defend European NATO allies in the future. He says that we need to combine governments and link them in a stable way so that Germany can answer all these geopolitical challenges we face and provide appropriate solutions. Ta.
At this point, we feel that liberal democracy in Europe is under threat from Russia. We are thought to be in a hybrid war with Russia. And more and more since the new US administration.
