The CDU/CSU de Center-Droit de Friedrich Merz came out of the German legislative elections, with 28.5 % of the votes. However, this is a low result given the failures of the previous government led by the Greens and the Social Democrats (within the framework of a three-way coalition with the FDP liberals, who failed to exercise any influence). It is the second worst electoral result of the history of Christians-democrats, with only eight percentage points ahead of the alternative for Germany (AFD), which obtained 20.8 % of the votes.
Friedrich Merz had promised to halve the share of AFD votes. Instead, party support doubled compared to 2021, from 10.4 % to 20.8 %, while Merz’s party gained only 4.4 percentage points. Friedrich Merz paid the price of not having discussed earlier and more decisively of the heritage of Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. In terms of politics, Merz gradually reshaped the position Christians Democrats on a series of questions, in particular immigration.
But whenever the CDU/CSU criticized Germany’s migration policy, AFD could respond: “But it was the CDU/CSU that started all this under [Angela] Merkel in 2015 “. The most interesting statistics of the electoral evening revealed that when they were asked who was responsible for the arrival of so many migrants and asylum seekers in Germany, 54 % of voters blamed The CDU/CSU.
A similar trend has appeared on other questions. Merz criticized the closure of nuclear power plants, which AFD retorted: “It was the CDU which decided to gradually close the nuclear power plants under the direction of Angela Merkel”. Likewise, when Friedrich Merz was worried about the ban on combustion motor cars, AFD simply replied: “But was not Ursula von der Leyen, of the CDU, which was iron lance of the prohibition of combustion engines in the EU? “
The bulky inheritance of Angela Merkel
To effectively mark a new political start, Merz should have distanced himself from the policies of Angela Merkel much earlier and more resolutely, and proactively treat the past of her party. But he did not dare to do it, because he knows that his party is divided between the moderate conservatives like him and the members of the party who are still aligned with the policies of the former Chancellor Angela Merkel. Publicly denying the heritage of the latter, although absolutely necessary, would have caused divisions within his party. Merz only achieved a few weeks before the election he had to recognize the responsibility of the CDU/CSU in many problems with which Germany is confronted (immigration, energy policy, etc.). But at that time, it was already too late.
Friedrich Merz also had trouble explaining convincingly how he intended to implement the radical changes which he promised in matters of migration and economic policy. After all, he had excluded a coalition with AFD and committed to the SPD or the Greens were his partners, the very parties who are responsible for the disastrous migration and economic policies in the last three years.
In all likelihood, Friedrich Merz will form a coalition with the SPD. The radical political reversal that Germany needs so much after the Merkel era will not take place. What Germany really needs is a chancellor who drastically reduces taxes, deregulated in a radical way, puts a term with energy and mobility transitions, implementing a migration policy similar to that of Denmark, Netherlands or Poland, and doubles defense expenses. All this is difficult to imagine in partnership with the Social Democrats. However, if the radical turning point does not materialize, there is a risk that more and more voters will turn to AFD.
Should Merz seek to form a coalition with AFD? First, he promised thousands of times that he would not. Second, it would tear his party. Third, AFD itself does a lot to prevent it from happening. Unlike the right -wing parties in Italy and France, for example, which have become more moderate, AFD has so radicalized that even its former right -wing brothers in other European countries no longer want to work with it in Parliament European. Most recently, party president Alice Weidel said that she could imagine Björn Höcke, the far-right politician of Thuringia known for her national-socialist opinions, as Minister of the Government. This is a striking contrast with its previous position, which advocated the expulsion of Björn Höcke of the party. Today, she praises it and apologizes for her past “error”. However, in many ways, there are huge ideological differences between Weidel’s positions in favor of the free market, and those of Höcke and a large part of the party. The biggest problem with AFD, however, is its narrow alignment on the Kremlin: speeches in the Bundestag of its co -president Tino Chrupalla give the impression of having been written in the Kremlin.
Social Democrats have obtained their worst electoral result for 150 years, with only 16.4 % of the vote. Former leaders, such as Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schröder, had obtained results much higher than 40 %, Brandt reached almost 46 %. It was a long time ago.
FDP punishment
The extreme left party Die Linke (the former Communist Party Sed, who ruled East Germany and has changed its name several times since the fall of the Berlin Wall) has experienced a late rise and outstanding. Despite its 3 % voting intentions in recent months, Die Linke has managed to obtain 8.8 % of the vote, and even came out in the capital of Berlin with 19.9 % of the vote. With extreme left slogans on the class struggle, requests to open borders and calls to a Germany without billionaires, Die Linke has touched a sensitive string among voters. Their message found an echo with young voters aged 18 to 24, where they came first with 25 % of the votes, followed closely by AFD with 21 %.
During the last federal elections of 2021, the Greens and Liberals of the FDP were the first choices of young voters. At the time, 21 % of them supported the FDP, against only 5 % this time, a loss of 16 percentage points. At the national level, the FDP obtained 4.3 % of the vote, less than the 5 % threshold required to enter Parliament, which means that they are excluded from the next Bundestag. Voters who supported the FDP in 2021 would have liked an FDP more to the right: the FDP lost 2.1 million voters for the benefit of the CDU/CSU and the AFD. Voters have punished the FDP for its role in a coalition which supervised the ban on combustion engines, the exit from nuclear and the introduction of a new “self -determination law”, which allows each German to change their like once a year. Either the FDP reinvents itself as a clearly libertarian party who aligns with politicians like Javier Milei, or he will become unrelevant.
Despite so many bad news on the evening of the elections, a positive result was the short defeat of the BSW Alliance of Sahra Wagenknecht, which only obtained 4.97 % of the votes. Sahra Wagenknecht, long-standing admirer of the socialist Hugo Chavéz, radically anti-American and Putin’s apologue, had won significant victories during the European and regional elections in the Eastern States of Germany. This time, however, the BSW lost because of its line chief, a thoroughbred troubles that causes controversy wherever it goes.
*German historian, Rainer Zitelmann is notably the author ofHitler’s National Socialism,, The Power of Capitalism and recent How Nations Escape Poverty.
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