(CN) — Germany is in a deep crisis and there’s no end in sight as the nation deals with political fragmentation, an anemic economy, public frustration and the rise of radical parties, most strikingly the far-right Alternative for Germany party.
Elections on Sunday in the east German state of Brandenburg are expected to intensify the crisis, especially if the Alternative for Germany wins the most votes, as polls suggest. Earlier this month, the party won state elections in Thuringia and came in second in Saxony, sending shock waves across Germany and Europe. A far-right party hadn’t won a state election in Germany since the end of the Nazi regime.
A win in Brandenburg by the AfD, as the party is commonly known by its German initials, would be a major blow to Chancellor Olaf Scholz because his center-left Social Democratic Party has ruled the state since the 1990s. The state borders Poland and encompasses districts surrounding Berlin and includes some of the capital’s suburbs.
A loss on Sunday would increase pressure on Scholz to even consider stepping down ahead of national elections in a year and let someone else lead the Social Democrats, or SPD. Nationally, the party’s support has sunk.
“My question is: Will Scholz survive until September 2025?” said Dan Hough, a political scientist at the University of Sussex in England who studies Germany. “The mood music at the moment is yes. But if the SPD continues where it is, then there will be serious internal discussions about whether a different candidate is necessary.”
Experts say Germany’s political crisis is unlike anything the country has experienced in decades — arguably since its constitutional order was rebuilt following World War II — and that its troubles could worsen as hard-core populist parties on the right and left draw in more voters, leaving the center hollowed out and viable governing coalitions in doubt.
When talking about German politics these days, it’s increasingly necessary to break out a pie chart and carefully examine how the electorate is sliced up among seven parties whose policies, voter bases and worldviews are incongruent at best and often downright opposed.
‘Dysfunctional at best’
The road ahead may get even bumpier: Germany, the European Union’s economic powerhouse, could even become ungovernable, experts said.
“The best comparison is 1990s Italy, where you have a succession of governments that are just very weak and can’t govern,” said Alexander Clarkson, a lecturer in German and European studies at King’s College London.
During that difficult decade, Italians saw a new government pop up virtually each year in the wake of huge corruption scandals that buried the country’s old political parties.
“How long did it take the Italians to recover?” Clarkson said, speaking by telephone. “Thirty years.”
Until recently, politics in Germany — and in the previous West Germany — were mostly stable, as power oscillated between the Christian Democrats, the traditional conservatives, and the Social Democrats, the old moderate left-wing party. Under former Chancellor Angela Merkel, as their dominance began to wane, the two parties joined forces to govern in so-called “grand coalitions.”
But this duopoly is breaking down, which became an undeniable reality in the last federal elections in 2021. The Social Democrats took in the most votes but fell far short of a majority. They cobbled together a coalition with the Greens, a pro-environment and militarily hawkish party, and the Free Democrats, a pro-business party popular with younger male voters.
The three-party combo was a novelty for Germany and there were many doubters about how much agreement they could find.
At the start, things went fairly well: The Greens got some climate change policies enacted, the Free Democrats kept a lid on social spending and the Social Democrats got to present themselves as fighting climate change, standing up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and talking big about how Germany’s military strength would be rebuilt in the face of Russia’s threat.
But as the war in Ukraine dragged on, things began to unravel with Germans angry over high energy costs, costly climate policies and an economy in a tailspin. Germany remains in the economic doldrums.
“For the first 18 months, each party was getting something they wanted, but there was not enough ideological convergence within the three parties,” Clarkson said. “There is a real sense of directionlessness.”
Hough emphasized the cost of the parties’ lack of common ground. “This government has been pretty impressive in being able to disagree on everything. I think at times they would disagree on what day of the week it was. They have been dysfunctional at best,” he said.
The problem is the next German government may wind up in the same predicament: Arguing over how best to bail out a leaky boat they’re all stuck in.
That’s because Germany’s centrist parties — the Christian Democrats, the SPD, the Greens and the Free Democrats — refuse to govern with extremists on the right and left and therefore will need to concoct parliamentary majorities among themselves.
‘Confused’ coalitions
Besides the AfD, there are two far-left parties in Germany: the Left party, with communist roots, and its new offshoot, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, known by its initials, BSW. Combined, the AfD and the far-left parties are backed by between 30% and 40% of German voters.
Polls suggest the Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party, known together as the CDU-CSU, are on pace to win the next federal elections, but they may need two other parties to form a government. But with the CDU-CSU moving farther to the right to fend off the AfD, an alliance with the SPD and the Greens might make an uncomfortable fit. The Free Democrats, meanwhile, are doing so poorly they risk not even getting seats in the Bundestag, the parliament.
Heiner Flassbeck, a prominent German economist and former government adviser, said the political landscape is troubling.
“We will see coalitions like the one we have now in Berlin that have no common ground,” he said in a telephone interview. “Politics will be like they are now: Confused and from day to day without any clear decision, without explaining anything to the people. Then, you end up in chaos or fascism. I don’t know.”
Dissatisfaction with the three-party coalition in Berlin is fueling the rise of the extremist populists, Hough said.
“Germans certainly are grumpy, there’s absolutely no doubt about that,” he said, speaking by telephone. “A whole bunch of things have come together to make Germans particularly unhappy with the public sphere.”
“There’s a real feeling that they have not got stuff done,” he said. “Olaf Scholz comes across a bit like a robot at times — gives the same methodical answers. And it just feels like, for many, they’re being patronized by a group of people who don’t know what they are doing.”
He worried what might happen if radical parties get even stronger.
“Germany is in that position where this could go in a very dangerous direction,” he said. “If the AfD and BSW continue to win votes, what on earth would the governing coalition look like? That is an open question.”
Clarkson said Germany’s multiparty constitutional system has enough checks and balances to prevent the AfD and BSW from ever getting into power, but he said they are throwing Germany’s politics into “chronic instability.”
“The coalition landscape is a disaster,” he said.
The last time the federal republic faced such uncertainty was in 1949, the first election after World War II, he said.
“Ever since, Germans have had elections where you had a clear sense that if you vote for party X, you’ll get coalition X or at least coalition X or coalition Y is possible,” he said. “In the next election, it’s really not clear how this is going to work.”
Making matters worse, Clarkson said that while Germany’s conservatives, the CDU-CSU, are ahead in the polls with over 30% of the vote nationally, the party is being torn apart by an internal conflict over how to deal with the AfD’s anti-immigration, anti-EU, anti-Green Deal and pro-Russia messages.
“The Christian Democrats are confused,” he said.
Friedrich Merz, the party leader and possible next chancellor, is pushing the idea “that you need to run a populist right-wing campaign focused on migration, borders, security, to get back voters who shifted to AfD,” Clarkson said.
But a big chunk of the party falls in line with the tradition set by Merkel, preferring “moderation, centrism, social market economy, social welfare, public issues, tough on migration but integrating migrants,” he said.
Hough believes Germany’s political leaders need to work fast to get the country on track and win back voters’ confidence.
“They’re looking for some adults in the room who can actually take Germany forward, but they’re a long way from that at the moment,” he said.
“If the next government is a mess, then time is running out a bit,” he said. “Germany’s going to get itself in a position where people are significantly unhappy and we could have someone like [Hungarian Prime Minister] Viktor Orbán rising up.”
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.