A lesson for "traffic lights"

The triumph of the extremes in eastern Germany

The big winners of the state elections in Thuringia: Björn Höcke and Katja Wolf, the lead candidate of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).

(Bild: AFP/Jörg Carstensen)

What had been expected in the run-up to the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia came true on Sunday. More than 40% of the votes in the two federal states went to populists from the far-right AfD and the more left-wing alliance of Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW). Voters thus presented German politicians with a difficult task.

For the first time, the AfD is the strongest party after a state election. In Thuringia, the far-right party achieved this by a large margin ahead of the CDU. In Saxony, it fought a neck-and-neck race with the CDU.

However, due to a lack of partners, the AfD is unlikely to govern in any of the federal states.

Not least because Wagenknecht, a former leftist, does not want to work with the AfD under any circumstances. She does not want to be lumped together with the party, which has been classified as right-wing extremist in both Thuringia and Saxony by the respective Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

The big winners of the state elections in Thuringia: Björn Höcke and Katja Wolf, the lead candidate of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).

(Bild: AFP/Jörg Carstensen)

The BSW itself does not fit into any known category. Wagenknecht takes a similar line to the AfD on limiting migration and rejecting military aid for Ukraine (a kind of "AfD-Light"), but is more to the left when it comes to social and economic policy. According to opinion pollsters, the BSW tends to live off left-wing voters - while the AfD can count on a considerable percentage of supporters with staunchly right-wing views.

Sahra Wagenknecht takes a very similar line to the AfD on many issues.

(Bild: AFP)

Broadsides against the traffic light coalition in Berlin
What they both have in common, however, is their self-image as "against the parties up there". They fired sharp broadsides against those in power, in particular against the traffic light coalition in Berlin. Both the AfD and BSW deny it almost any suitability for solving problems.

They paint the state of the country in the darkest colors and offer themselves as saviors. "Our country is not in good shape," reads the BSW's founding manifesto.

In addition, more than three decades after the unification of the GDR and West Germany, frustration is running high. In an ARD survey, three out of four respondents in both Saxony and Thuringia said that politics and the economy were still too heavily dominated by West Germans and that East Germans were still "second-class citizens" in many places.

For her part, Wagenknecht said during the election campaign that the BSW had run "so that the people who want to protest are angry, so that the people who want change have a serious alternative that they can vote for and that really changes things in their interests and puts pressure on the federal parties".

Both parties reinforce doubts about the "system"
The AfD and BSW each reinforced doubts about the "system", parliamentary processes, conventional media and freedom of opinion in their own way. AfD leader Björn Höcke spoke of "cartel party rule" and "bought" media at the end of the election campaign on Saturday. It "doesn't matter what you vote for", all parties "dissolve our Germany like a bar of soap under a jet of water", he declared. Only the AfD is different.

Without a partner, however, the AfD is left with nothing but opposition. The BSW, on the other hand, could soon be in a position to prove itself in government. Before that, however, oil and water would have to be combined, so to speak: The potential partner CDU is sometimes miles away from BSW positions ...