Germany’s embattled Chancellor has vowed to use the “instruments” of the security state to “defend” against a potential anti-mass-migration state government after Sunday night’s bombshell election results in Saxony-Anhalt.
The process to form a new governing coalition in the German federal state of Saxony-Anhalt is underway today after the legacy parties were rocked by a first-place finish and clear governing mandate for the populist-sovereigntist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Sunday’s state-wide elections. Final results put the insurgent, anti-mass migration party on 43.8 per cent, handing them 39 seats, just short of the 43 needed for a majority.
If the AfD can negotiate a coalition with a minor party to get over that threshold, it would be the first time the party controls one of Germany’s 16 federal states, a major stepping-stone towards national power the party wants.
The other challengers fell far short. The legacy party of government, the globalist-centre-right Christian Democrats, crashed to just 17.2 per cent in the Sunday election, in a development which has been interpreted as a referendum on the leadership of the German Chancellor himself. All remaining parties got also-ran results, including the main party of the left the SPD, and the Green Party on just nine per cent apiece.
While there are six parties entering the new Saxon-Anhalt parliament, the options for an AfD-led coalition appear severely limited. Almost all factions have already declared they will not work with the AfD in any way to form a government — with left wing parties decrying them as fascists to be fought and the pro-open borders centre-right correctly intuiting that the AfD seek to destroy them as a political force — leaving only a coalition with a new, small populist-left faction, a destined-to-fail minority government, or fresh elections as roads forward.
Naturally, rhetoric before the vote and since the first vote tallies came in has been bullish, with both the AfD and that small left-wing-populist faction the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) both positioning themselves to gain maximum leverage at any future negotiations. But while a grand left-right coalition may at first glance seem improbable, both parties hold common interests, crucially including being in favour of ending mass migration.
An offshoot of the post-communist Germany Left party (Die Linke), the BSW is part of the small but distinct European movement of intellectually coherent leftists who want a welfare state, but who acknowledge a sustainable welfare system cannot coexist with open borders. Both parties also believe Europe has more to lose than to gain by making war with Russia. These views on border control and international affairs have made these insurgent parties plenty of enemies among the legacy media and political groupings.
As an opening gambit to the forthcoming coalition talks, the BSW has said it wouldn’t outright support an AfD government but could use Saxony-Anhalt parliamentary procedure to allow the AfD’s local leading candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, become Minister-President of the state without technically voting for him, or even to support a Geert Wilders-style non-partisan figurehead for the top job. Both outcomes seem unlikely: AfD’s Siegmund, who wore his mainstream media label “the most dangerous man in Germany” as a badge of honour during the campaign, has said he would only lead his government into a coalition if it was with a formal and straightforward majority, and the Wilders’ option of allowing the largest party power while also keeping its leader out of the chair spectacularly failed when tried, and is unlikely to be given another go.
If all else fails, the Saxony-Anhalt parliament can always default back to fresh elections, an option Siegmund has already indicated he’d consider, although whether this is just another negotiating tactic to encourage his would-be partners not to risk an even worse result on another throw of the dice is so far unclear.
Analysis of voting data and exit polling reported by Tagesschau paints a remarkable picture for the AfD’s performance in the past 24 hours. While well known phenomena including men and less wealthy families being more likely to support the party were replicated yet again, overall the AfD dominated in practically every demographic. Even among the youngest voters, which often tends to skew left, the right-wing-populist party won the plurality.
Meanwhile, the German establishment has reacted with undisguised horror at the democratic will of their own people. The Catholic and Protestant churches of Saxony-Anhalt issued a joint statement to express their concern, and one of Germany’s largest trade unions called on all other political parties (‘democratic forces’) to freeze the AfD (‘fascists’) out of power altogether.
National Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who leads the CDU party that received such a drubbing in the results announced this morning, was clearly particularly affected by the election and whether it may cause the collapse of his government is openly discussed. German newspaper Bild reports he addressed the federal executive of the CDU on Monday morning, where the results were met with dismay to say this “dramatic defeat” has “shaken our party to its core”. It would be terrible to return to business as normal, he said, given the AfD intends “complete destruction” of the legacy conservative CDU which under Chancellor Merkel opened the borders of Germany to the world.
Germany has a considerable security state, including political police. These organisations are a legacy of the post-Second World War and Cold War political settlements, when it was thoughjt Germany’s constitution needed inbuilt protections against democracy of a magnitude practically unknown elsewhere in the Western world. Convinced that the public voting against endless open borders is an emergency justifying the use of these powers, Merz is reported to have said on Monday he would use “all the instruments” in Germany’s “strong constitution” to defend the nation against “a right-wing extremist state government”.
To some extent, these powers are already deployed against the AfD. The previous left-wing national government attempted to declare the party politically unacceptable — a step on the road to the AfD, Germany’s highest-polling faction, being banned outright — and the political police in Saxony-Anhalt have already classified the local branch as “confirmed right-wing extremist”. This produces the remarkable situation where it is presently possible that the next government of Saxony-Anhalt could be by a party which the present one has awarded itself the constitutional powers to infiltrate and spy upon.