Saxony and Thuringia elect new state parliaments
Published: Sunday, Sep 1st 2024, 08:40
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Voters in the eastern German states of Saxony and Thuringia will decide today on the composition of their new state parliaments. According to polls, a victory for the far-right AfD party is possible in both states. Polling stations have been open since 08:00 and close at 18:00. The first forecasts will be available immediately afterwards.
In the polls, the AfD (Alternative for Germany) was recently well ahead of the Christian Democrats (21%) and the left-wing populist alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), which is running for the first time. In Saxony, Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer's CDU was in a neck-and-neck race with the AfD. As no party wants to work together with the AfD, but there are also considerable ideological differences between the other parties, forming a government after the elections is likely to be difficult.
The atmosphere in the election campaign was heated in view of the polarization. In mid-August, demonstrators in the university town of Jena (Thuringia) prevented an election campaign appearance by AfD right-wing extremist Björn Höcke with sit-in blockades and chants. According to the Ministry of the Interior in Saxony, there have already been around 900 politically motivated crimes in connection with the local, European and state elections this year.
Most recently, the election campaign was overshadowed by the terrorist attack in the West German city of Solingen, which further inflamed the migration debate. There, three people were killed and eight injured by stab wounds to the neck at a public festival. A 26-year-old Syrian man suspected of the crime is in custody; the Islamic State (IS) terrorist militia has claimed responsibility for the attack. The rejected asylum seeker should have left Germany long ago. With hashtags such as "Höcke or Solingen", the AfD tried to exploit the crime for its own ends.
The barely reduced influx of asylum seekers, which is overburdening municipalities and districts in Germany, is considered one of the reasons for the AfD's strength. In addition, there is a general feeling of disadvantage in eastern Germany compared to the west, which is why the AfD is seen as a protest party. Both the AfD and BSW are also in favor of an end to arms deliveries to Ukraine and Russia sanctions, a popular position in the east.
Since German reunification in 1990, citizens in the former GDR have voted differently than in the West. Party loyalty is less pronounced there. In the first decades, the Left Party, which emerged from the GDR state party SED, was able to attract many protest votes, but it was displaced by the AfD and the BSW. The latter is a split from the Left Party under the leadership of former communist Sahra Wagenknecht.
The parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's "traffic light" coalition in Berlin - SPD, FDP and Greens - are facing disaster in the East. Together they are only polling at a maximum of twelve percent. However, in view of the gloomy prospects of all three parties in the event of a new Bundestag election, it is unlikely that the "traffic light" coalition will give up a year before the regular election date in September 2025.
©Keystone/SDA
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