Following the February 23 federal election in Germany, political tensions have arisen over coalitions and immigration policies.
The results of this year’s elections in Germany were nothing short of unexpected. The Social Democratic Union party, who won Germany’s last elections, received the third largest share of the votes (16.4%), the party’s worst results since 1890. Instead, the Christian Democratic Party and the Alternative for Deutschland (Germany) party received 28.6% and 20.8% of votes respectively. The other two parties that surpassed the 5% threshold to get seats in the German Bundestag (parliament) were The Greens and the Left Party. The results for the AfD were especially unprecedented, as the far right party received double the votes compared to the 2021 election, where they only received 10.3% of the votes.
Since its creation in 2013, the AfD has been subject to a “political firewall,” a strategy employed by mainstream political parties to exclude extremist parties from government participation, in an effort to prevent Germany from going back to World War II era politics. The AfD party is known for being staunchly anti-immigration, anti-Islam, pro-German nationalism, and pro-Putin, resulting in the extremist label given to them by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency. Björn Höcke, a politician associated with the party, recently received a hefty fine for using the infamous Nazi slogan “Everything for Germany” in one of his 2021 speeches. Many other AfD members have also been involved in anti-Semitic controversies, such as calling the Holocaust Memorial a monument of German shame, and walking out during a tribute to Holocaust victims. Prior to the election, Donald Trump’s senior advisor Elon Musk attended a campaign event for the AfD, and congratulated Alexis Weidel, the party’s co-leader, on her success following the announcement of the election results. JD Vance and much of the Trump administration has attended events relating to the AfD as well.
A key issue that has led to an increase in conservative and far right parties’ election success is immigration and asylum seeking. Germany has previously kept a reputation of being accepting of immigrants and asylum seekers from war torn countries. Currently, the most immigrants come from Turkey, Ukraine, and Syria. Now, some Germans have become increasingly concerned over the ability of some communities to integrate into German society, and worried about the number of terrorism attacks. The AfD has claimed that they would close the border, while the CDU plans to take a more palatable approach and tighten border security. Aside from immigration, important issues that the German government is expected to work on are growing military spending, restoring broken and aging infrastructure, and making the country more climate friendly.
Conflicting opinions on these issues between the mainstream parties have made it somewhat difficult to predict who the CDU/CSU will form a coalition with. The coalitions with the highest odds of forming would be either the CDU/CSU and the SPD, or the CDU/CSU, The Greens, and the Left Party. So far, The Greens and the SPD have expressed willingness to enter a coalition with the CDU/CSU, with the latter being a more likely outcome.
Shortly after coalition discussions began, Alice Weidel posted a controversial tweet on X, accusing Merz of election fraud; “Election fraud on the horizon: Merz is already throwing all election promises overboard on day 1, he refused to close the borders, and spoke with the Greens and SPD about reforming the debt brake. This is politics against the will of the voters!”
Many German officials and educators were quick to call her out on her claim. Daniel Thym, a European law expert from the University of Konstanz said that “Friedrich Merz never promised that. It was ‘only’ about the permanent extension of border controls, which have been in place at most German borders for a year now, without these borders being ‘closed.’ Merz also wants to turn back asylum seekers. This is tantamount to a de facto entry ban for this group.”
