There are moments in the life of countries that end up symbolizing a change of era, and the overwhelming victory of Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the elections in the eastern German land of Saxony-Anhalt may be one of them: the confirmation that the far right has definitively established itself as a central political force in the heart of the European Union. AfD won 43.8% of the votes and 39 deputies in the regional Parliament on Sunday, more than double the previous elections and came very close to an absolute majority. If it receives the support of the left-wing anti-immigration group Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, for the first time since 1945 a party with roots in German ethnic nationalist nationalism will lead a government of a federal state. The triumph of this ideology opposed to all the humanist principles on which Germany and Europe were built after the postwar period is not irreversible, and it is the task of democrats to prevent it.
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Although only 2.1 million people live in Saxony-Anhalt, the result of these elections is far from anecdotal. It is not because of Germany’s history, exemplary in its way of confronting the crimes of its past, but which, as has been seen now, has not been immunized against ideas of exclusion and xenophobia. AfD already leads the national polls above the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, one of the big losers in this election. And its victory responds to a deeper movement that has been advancing in Europe and America over the last decade. The German far right is not just any far right. Its radicalism has led parties in its orbit, such as Marine Le Pen’s, to distance themselves. Some of its leaders connect directly with currents that call for relativizing National Socialism or propose exclusionary measures contrary to the Basic Law of 1949.
Some causes of the consolidation of this radical party in German society are common in other countries, from the distance between the most dynamic metropolises and rural regions to the perception by part of the population of immigration as a threat. All this is fuel for demagogues. In the case of AfD there is a unique German context, due to the specificity of the former German Democratic Republic, less prosperous than the West and where many of its inhabitants feel like second-class citizens. Propelled by a stagnant economy, an industry that is missing the train of technological revolutions, and the erosion of purchasing power, AfD is a phenomenon that goes beyond the East. Germany suffered a triple shock in the last decade: the end of cheap Russian energy, the loss of the export market in China, and, on the horizon, the withdrawal of the protective umbrella of the United States. It has not yet recovered.
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The result is the greatest victory of the far right in Germany since the fall of Hitler and the collapse of traditional parties, whose formulas have proven unsuccessful. The cordons sanitaires served to keep these ideologies away from power. Not anymore. What has failed is the inability to make real the promise of shared prosperity with which Europe was refounded after World War II and to respond to a malaise in sectors of the population that end up turning to the easy answers of the radicals. The obligation is to achieve this from Europeanism, human rights, the defense of the European social model, and respect for voters. There is no other country where prosperity and democracy have gone hand in hand as much as in Germany, which was rebuilt after the zero year of 1945. If this promise fails there, it can fail elsewhere, and it would be the end of Europe as we have known it. Saxony-Anhalt is a wake-up call. It is not too late to wake up.
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