German election results …
… were pretty much as expected. That indicates that opinion polling still seem to work in Germany:
With vote counting finished, preliminary results show the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz and its sister Christian Social Union (CSU) won the election.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was projected to finish second … [having] nearly doubled its vote share.
The center-left Social Democrats (SPD), led by current Chancellor Olaf Scholz, recorded not only its worst result in a federal election but also its largest loss of votes compared to previous elections.
The neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), whose withdrawal from the coalition triggered the snap election, also suffered heavy losses. The party won’t enter the Bundestag after failing to meet the 5% threshold.
But Friedrich Merz, head of the CDU, has said he will not form a coalition with the AfD. Therefore, although by European and German standards the CDU is a conservative party, any coalition government that is formed will have to be with a party to the left, almost certainly the SPD, which has recorded terrible losses in this election. The gain is on the right, but because it’s the so-called “far right” that grew the most, paradoxically Merz has turned his back on a coalition of the right.
How “far-right” is the AfD? I tried to answer that question in this post of mine from a few days ago. My answer was that, as far as I can tell – and I’m no expert on the subject of Germany’s politics – the party does have some anti-Semitic elements. How large these elements loom I’m not sure, and in Germany the danger of this possibility, as well as the whole idea of a German nationalist party, engenders understandable concern. However, the opposite – in particular, a huge influx of unassimilated Muslims, as well as leftist policies on energy – have harmed both Germany and Europe.
[NOTE: I am almost certainly not the only one in whom the name ‘Friedrich Merz” conjures up fond memories.]
I wouldn’t excuse anti-semitism on the German right, but really, the German left has done a bang-up job of ignoring Muslim immigrant anti-semitism and suppressing people opposed to all the “asylum seekers” and the crime they bring.
Fred Mertz makes so much more sense than what my mind conjured up.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0545298/
Yep, what Kate said. The establishment doesn’t like the ‘extreme’ AfD but will fight to the end for the Muslim extremists they have invited in.
And, according to this, no sooner did Merz win than he began backing away from his election talk of closing the borders.
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/02/24/germanys-brand-news-chancellor-elect-pulled-the-old-magoo-n3800150
Actually hes very much the ally of schwab and blackrock
Alice Weidel’s remark was that the Christian Democrats had copied AfD’s platform, then declared they would only coalesce with leftist parties (who would refuse to consent to its implementation). Bait and switch.
To my mind – and even bearing in mind the insistence for months on Merz’ part that the Union would never have anything to do with the AfD – the fact that the CDU is choosing to grasp at what not so long ago would have been referred to as the “Grand Coalition” option is a sign of desperation rather than of strength. I draw this conclusion due to the fact that the SPD lost about a third of its strength in the parliament this time around, in one fell swoop, which is really quite an achievement.
SPD als Volkspartei? Ganz und gar vorbei! (I exaggerate, perhaps, but not by a great deal, methinks.)
What really saved Merz’ bacon this time around, I think, and the only reason that he has this option available at all, is the fact that the FDP got body-slammed and the BSW seems to be not quite so impressive after all, so there will be only five parties in the parliament rather than six or seven. Had either of those reached 5%, the Union would have had a more difficult series of decisions to make.
I generally concur that this will probably lead to more of the same from Berlin, but I also consider it possible that something amazing could happen while this particular government in Berlin endures.
The DW article to which neo linked in the post is fun to play around with a bit. The graphic showing plurality winners by district is very interesting for one reason in particular: the AfD was getting numbers well into the 40+% range, and actually beating the CSU’s percentages in the core Bavarian districts!
This map of the results of Germany’s election reveals an insightful metric. The blue ADP areas and the black CDU/SPD areas also match the outlines of the former West and East German cold war demarcations.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/ws/640/cpsprodpb/a3f5/live/2c6e46a0-f2bd-11ef-896e-d7e7fb1719a4.png.webp
East Germans have no trouble recognizing an authoritarian regime when they are forced to live under one…
(I should clarify that the last paragraph of my previous was talking about the AfD’s results in Saxony, not Bavaria. Didn’t catch the edit window in time.)
Neo,
You wrote
Why do you accept the equating of politically “Right” with antisemitism? Seems to me that this is a time-honored slander from the Left; e.g. the Nazis were “right-wing” even though they were the German Workers National *Socialist* party.
The whole Right-Left terminology seems to be debased and almost meaningless, except as a rough label and a formula for demonizing one’s opponents.
Geoffrey Britain on February 24, 2025 at 9:07 pm said:
This map of the results of Germany’s election reveals an insightful metric. The blue ADP areas and the black CDU/SPD areas also match the outlines of the former West and East German cold war demarcations. …
East Germans have no trouble recognizing an authoritarian regime when they are forced to live under one…”
WOW – very “dark” separation there! and also amazing that none of the districts [states?] seem to have a straight line boundary anywhere?? Are they all drawn with rivers or mountains as boundaries?
R2L: boundaries in most of Europe follow historical boundaries, so yes, they can follow rivers and actually meander around in the most amusing way.
Re the post, two details:
(1) The SPD was the major party in the government that just fell, so it was the main architect of managing Germany into the ground. The other two parties in the government were the “classical liberal” FDP and the Greens. And I would argue that the results were so disastrous because the Greens set the agenda. Which of course led to the Greens losing the fewest votes, while the SPD lost a third and the FDP over half, because Germans are crazy.
(2) The “winner” CDU had the second-worst result since 1945.
To understand the AfD you need to visit the old left behind cities of East Germany, the former DDR. This is where there support is. This is also where there is real nostalgia for the authoritarian regimes of both the post war communist regime and – unbelievably- Hitler.
The racism, anti-semitism, desire for a strong state and military is combined with a love for strong leaders such as Putin, Orban and maybe these days Trump.
The rest of Germany will reject any Government involving them. In Berlin and the old west Germany they are unpopular and loathed.
I wish people would calibrate their characterizations of foreign political parties. As near as I can tell, the AfD is similar to MAGA, with some mainstream US Democrat party anti-semitism thrown in. Unless you’re MSNBC, AfD has a centrist (or slightly right of center) political philosophy. The CDU is similar to our own center-left (or far left) Democrat party. And the SPD is actually “far left” (not to mention the greens). Perhaps focusing on policies instead of broad brush and inaccurate branding would result in a better understanding of what’s going on in Germany. It’s like Mitch McConnell and the other half dozen squishes in the Senate deciding to form an alliance with Chuck Schumer, rather than the 47 other Republican senators. I suspect that AfD would happily form an alliance with the CDU that got immigration under control and derailed the “green” revolution that is destroying Germany’s economy. The CDU instead will enter into a coalition where neither occurs and will be shocked when the AfD continues to grow in popularity and power.
Actually the east experienced communism the left were largely spared
Maybe thats why the deprivation of free speech doesnt faze them apparentl neither does the saracen invaders
Any political party in Europe that is not socialist or near-socialist is branded as far right.
To understand the AfD you need to visit the old left behind cities of East Germany, the former DDR. This is where there support is. This is also where there is real nostalgia for the authoritarian regimes of both the post war communist regime and – unbelievably- Hitler. The racism, anti-semitism, desire for a strong state and military is combined with a love for strong leaders such as Putin, Orban and maybe these days Trump. The rest of Germany will reject any Government involving them. In Berlin and the old west Germany they are unpopular and loathed.
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Thanks for the summary of the incestuous chatter in your circle of friends. We’re all enlightened.
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To understand the AfD, you might just read its platform. Since the contents of its platform are unremarkable, they are not quoted by the party’s detractors. Instead , we get the usual gamesmanship that those of us who have been contending with your ilk for decades know only too well. You get a string of epithets. Take it somewhere else. We’ve seen this movie before.
the fact that the CDU is choosing to grasp at what not so long ago would have been referred to as the “Grand Coalition” option is a sign of desperation rather than of strength.
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You’re getting an idea of the hills on which the CDU bosses want to die. (I’m going to wager the CSU has a significantly different perspective). For them, the ‘cosmopolitan’ dispensation indifferent to Germany’s cultural character is fundamental and maintaining Eurotrash institutions in fundamental. Saying Germany should re-establish a national currency, should leave the EU with its impingements on German sovereignty, should deport bogus refugees, should limit the number of temporary residents permitted in the country, should stop importing a tsunami of foreigners, should stop building cocoons for foreigners, should grant German citizenship selectively, and should make modifications in the political economy to promote child-bearing and child-rearing render you untouchable. See Mr. Clayton’s characterization of this.
The supposed ‘anti-semitic incidents’ are weak tea:
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/germanys-rising-far-right-afd-is-split-over-israel-jews-call-party-a-danger-either-way/
AfD’s platform:
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https://www.afd.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017-04-12_afd-grundsatzprogramm-englisch_web.pdf