The AfD’s Victory in Saxony-Anhalt Is Both a Warning and an Invitation to Reflect

Over the weekend, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the largest party in the local elections in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. With a full 44 percent of the vote, the party was more than twice the size of the CDU, which came in second with 18 percent of the vote.

This is not enough for an absolute majority, and since the other parties in the state have rejected supporting an AfD candidate for Minister-President, the prospects of a Minister-President from the far-right party may look difficult. But even if the result ends up leading to a new election in the state, the outcome of the latest election is still impossible to ignore: the AfD has struck a nerve in the eastern German state.

Much of the focus has been on how extreme the AfD is, particularly on the issue of immigration. And it is no secret that the party has long campaigned for the neo-fascist policy of “remigration” and demanded a complete halt to asylum in Germany.

The party has even held meetings with neo-Nazis and others from the far right about how the remigration plans should be implemented in practice if the party gains power at the federal level.

But the state of Saxony-Anhalt itself has an extremely small ethnic minority population, and it has not received particularly large numbers of asylum seekers or immigrants in recent years. So how has a party like the AfD, which places so much emphasis on immigration policy, managed to become the largest party?

The shift to the right is accelerating in these years, but it can be fought if all progressive voices manage to formulate concrete solutions to the challenges facing the population.

There may be many explanations for this, but it is relevant to look at how the reunification of East and West Germany in the early 1990s continues to affect the population today.

Saxony-Anhalt was part of the former GDR and was particularly hard hit by the deindustrialisation that took place after reunification.

In particular, the state’s energy production, which previously consisted of the extraction and processing of lignite, a sector that alone accounted for 80,000 jobs in 1989, has disappeared completely.

Many of the factories and jobs that once sustained the state have disappeared. Today, the population of Saxony-Anhalt has become older, while young people are leaving the state to find jobs in other parts of Germany.

For sections of the population who had job security, education and welfare benefits in the GDR, reunification has to a large extent felt like an invasion from the West that took all these things away from them.

The feeling that the “political elites” in the CDU or SPD have forgotten them, taken away their livelihoods and left them without a safety net is something the AfD speaks directly to.

Many Germans live in poverty, unemployment remains very high, and the federal government under Friedrich Merz has made enormous cuts to social benefits, particularly unemployment support, which only increases insecurity among the poorest sections of the population.

These are real concerns that are driving people directly into the arms of the far right.

During the election campaign, the AfD spoke extensively about energy production in particular. It wants more lignite and less renewable energy, presenting this as a plan to bring jobs back to the state.

So although the AfD itself is on the far right and openly flirts with outright fascists on a large scale, it would be a mistake to say that all of its voters are fascists.

Often, they are people who see the established parties as entities that do not have their interests at heart, while they believe that the far right, by contrast, talks about the issues that concern them.

The fact that the progressive left has failed to organise this discontent among these people should prompt reflection.

The AfD has succeeded in giving voice to this discontent, but its solutions will only lead to more hatred and misery for the working class.

And the left should pay particular attention to this contradiction at this moment.

The shift to the right is accelerating in these years, but it can be fought if all progressive voices manage to formulate concrete solutions to the challenges facing the population.

If this cannot be achieved, it will be the right that gains a monopoly on “speaking for the people”, and that would be nothing short of a catastrophe.


https://arbejderen.dk/

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