AfD’s victory tests Germany’s ‘firewall’ against the far right

Numbers Not Enough To Form Govt; Talks On With Others To Gain MajorityBerlin: Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has established itself as a significant political force in the 13 years since its founding, but it has never been part of any state or federal govt. That’s a result of what is often called a “firewall” against cooperation with the anti-immigrant, far-right party.That firewall faces its biggest test after AfD won a landslide victory in Sunday’s election in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt. AfD fell just short of an absolute majority, with 39 of 83 seats in the regional legislature. It won 43.8% of the vote, more than double its showing five years ago in the state, while Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s centre-right Christian Democrats lost about half its support.Germany’s mainstream parties have long said they would not work with AfD, which is classified by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency as an extremist group in some regions of the country — including the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. Any dealing by mainstream parties with AfD is particularly sensitive in view of Germany’s Nazi past.The AfD candidate for governor, Ulrich Siegmund, aims to become the first far-right head of a state govt and has said he will reach out to all other parties and individual lawmakers to assemble a governing majority. The far-left BSW reaffirmed its readiness to play kingmaker after it cleared the 5% threshold to enter Saxony-Anhalt’s state parliament.In addition to their hostility towards Germany’s political establishment and their social conservatism, the two parties share a number of priorities, including a hostility to mass migration — which BSW says harms local workers’ rights — suspicion of the mainstream media and a desire to end financial and military support for Ukraine and restore ties with Russia.“We’ve made no secret from the beginning that we’ll talk with all parties. AfD is part of that,” Thomas Schulze, BSW party’s lead candidate in the Saxony-Anhalt state election, said on Monday. Schulze said the mainstream parties’ refusal to work with AfD was “undemocratic”.Many Germans had believed their country had developed an immunity to nationalism and assertions of racial superiority after confronting the horrors of its Nazi past through education and laws to outlaw persecution.But as it turns out, that conviction was mistaken, and, similar to voters elsewhere, voters in Germany are increasingly empowering the extreme far-right party. AfD has rejected any accusations of being undemocratic and has repeatedly pushed back against the firewall. The firewall taboo has sometimes forced other parties into unusual alliances to keep AfD out of power.In Germany’s election last year, AfD achieved the best performance by a far-right party since World War II and became the strongest political force in parts of the country. AfD became the biggest opposition party in parliament after Merz’s party upheld the firewall and formed an unpopular coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats.Forming a govt that excludes AfD would only be possible if all the other parties that were elected worked together — CDU, Social Democrats, the Greens, the Left Party, and BSW. However, a coalition involving five partners would be unusual, very complicated and prone to instability.Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.