Germany’s ‘centrists’ are on their knees

It wasn’t supposed to happen in Germany. Since the world was upended by Brexit and Trump almost a decade ago, and even as populism scaled new heights across much of Europe, Germany was hailed as a bulwark of stability, moderation and supposedly sensible ‘centrism’.

Yet in yesterday’s German federal elections, voters delivered a hammer blow to the political establishment. Olaf Scholz’s ruling Social Democrats (SPD) earned their worst result since the 19th century. The liberal Free Democrats (FDP), in the coalition government until autumn of last year, failed to gain enough votes for a single seat in parliament, prompting leader and former finance minister Christian Lindner to quit frontline politics for good. The Green Party suffered fewer losses than its erstwhile coalition partners, but its fourth-place finish has led Robert Habeck, the outgoing economy minister, to quit the leadership.

The reasons for this bloodbath of the governing parties are not hard to fathom. The German economy is in the teeth of its longest recession since the Second World War. The once robust manufacturing sector is shutting factories and shedding jobs at an unprecedented rate. A series of terror attacks by Islamists and asylum seekers, including a knife attack at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial just days before the election, has made voters feel that the state has lost control of migration and can no longer keep people safe.

Emerging victorious was the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), whose chancellor candidate, Friedrich Merz, will form the next government. He ran on a campaign that, rhetorically at least, repudiated the centrist politics of his predecessor (and former rival in the CDU), Angela Merkel – especially her lax immigration policies. Still, despite the government’s catastrophic record, and despite Merz’s attempts to capitalise on public concern over migration, the CDU performed relatively poorly, gaining its second-worst vote share ever.

The fly in Merz’s ointment was the right-populist, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), which surged to new historic heights last night, outpolling every party in the outgoing government, and coming second with 21 per cent of the vote. This once fringe, right-wing party has now become the de facto party of the working class, winning 38 per cent of workers – more than three times the amount won by the SPD, the party that was actually founded to represent labour.

The AfD certainly has plenty of obnoxious politicians and hardline policies, but voters are not turning to it due to some ‘far right’ radicalisation, as the newspapers would have you believe. It has simply become a vehicle for expressing people’s anger on all kinds of issues. It was the first party to oppose the Merkel-driven consensus on migration, which has brought terror to Germany’s streets. It was the first to question the dash to Net Zero, which has now proved so disastrous for German industry and jobs. For all the noises Merz has made on these issues, many voters do not trust the CDU to deliver a genuine break from the failed status quo. Indeed, it seems all but certain that Merz will form a coalition with the SPD and the Greens, parties the electorate have just decisively rejected.

The AfD, like many of Europe’s populist parties, is usually cast as a ‘threat to democracy’. Yet it drew on a wellspring of support from non-voters, drawing two million of them to the polls. Indeed, turnout in these elections reached 84 per cent – the highest since German reunification in 1990. Clearly, the presence of the AfD has galvanised voters – both its backers and fierce opponents. The establishment’s relentless attempts to demonise not just the AfD but also its supporters, to treat them as beyond the pale, have comprehensively failed to keep a lid on the party’s support.

With these elections, the AfD has now clearly cemented itself as the strongest party in the former East Germany. Commentators often sneer that this is because the Ossis (Easterners) are somehow psychologically maladapted for democracy or are relaxed about the prospects of authoritarian rule. In truth, as historian Katja Hoyer explains, East German support for the AfD is merely a reflection of that part of Germany being poorer and ‘left behind’ (much like the Brexit voters in northern England or Trump supporters in the Rust Belt). Working-class voters in the West are just as likely to vote for the AfD. This alleged ‘East-West divide’ also reflects that the traditional parties are less established in the East, and so have always struggled to command as much loyalty as in the West.

Those voters abandoning the centrist mainstream aren’t only turning to parties of the right. The Left Party, the successor to the Socialist Unity Party that ran the German Democratic Republic, made unexpected gains last night, having refashioned itself as the party of the anti-AfD, bourgeois, urban youth. It not only came top in Berlin, but also spread beyond its former Eastern strongholds. Meanwhile, the ‘left-conservative’ Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, which was founded last year after a split with the Left Party, only just failed to get enough votes for a seat in the Bundestag. Yet, thanks to its populist blend of left-wing economic policies and social conservatism, it was the only party to successfully draw voters away from the AfD.

The centrist ‘consensus’ that has long ruled over Germany has never looked so fragile. The outgoing government has been dealt an historic, humiliating blow. Old loyalties, and the bases of support the traditional parties could count on, are crumbling before our eyes.

Germany is entering a new era of volatility – but this is also packed with possibility. Whatever else happens now, the failed old order cannot hold for much longer.

Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on X: @FraserMyers.