Germany: a remarkable result

By Richard North - February 24, 2025

So, after a spirited campaign in response to Scholtz’s snap election, his SPD branch of the Uniparty has been deposed, with a humiliating fall in the popular vote, from 25.7 in 2021 to a provisional 16 percent according to yesterday’s exit poll, suffering its worst result since modern elections started after WW2,

Now in the lead, according to the same source, is the CDU/CSU Uniparty branch, headed by former Black Rock executive Friedrich Merz (pictured), whose party conglomerate climbs from the 24.1 percent in 2021 to 29.0 percent of the popular vote, slightly behind Labour’s 33.7 percent in the 2024 general, indicating the strength of the mandate (not) given by the German people.

However, things are not quite what they seem. While the UK struggled to deliver a 59.8 percent turnout, the Germans rushed to the polls with a record-breaking turnout of 83.5 percent, the highest since unification in 1990. In terms of a mandate, therefore, the CDU/CSU take 24.2 percent of the registered vote.

By way of contrast, though, Labour’s 20 percent of the registered vote gave them 411 seats or 63 percent of those available, giving them a clear parliamentary majority. In the German election, the 24.2 percent gives them an estimated 208 seats of the 630 available – some 33 percent of the total.

To that extent, the German system demonstrably better reflects the voting patterns in the country and forces the politicians to make deals with their electoral rivals in order to form a working majority in the Bundestag.

Where it then gets really interesting is in the nature of those coalitions. In the nature of things, one would expect parties who share at least some goals and ideology.

That was certainly the case after the 2021 when in the November, a three-way coalition was unveiled, with the Social Democrats, Greens and the FDP (the so-called “traffic light” coalition, from the parties’ colours) formed a government.

This, incidentally, was the first time such a combination of parties had ever governed Germany, with the SDP’s Olaf Scholz replacing Angela Merkel as chancellor. The coalition pledged to put climate change at the top of the agenda which, with the ensuing economic mayhem, was largely responsible for the collapse of Scholz’s government.

Now the centre-left is to be replaced with the centre-right, in terms of the political spectrum, a logical alliance for the CDU/CSU might appear to be the AfD, a right-leaning party (with some socialist policies), but variously dubbed “hard” or “far” right.

In a country which still hasn’t got over the associations between the far-right and the Nazi Party, this has resulted in all the established parties refusing to work with the AfD, their so-called “firewall” policy.

Thus, although the AfD has taken 19.5 percent of the vote, almost doubling its share of 10.3 percent in 2021, it is being treated as a pariah and will never be invited to join an alliance with “Uniparty” members and participate in government.

As Deutsche Welle wryly remarks, therefore, AfD’s election success “amounts to nothing”. This is despite the fact that, just 12 years after being founded, it has become the second largest political force in Germany and, in eastern Germany, the strongest political party.

What is also highly significant is that the party has the largest proportion of the 25-34 age group, and shares with the Left Party the highest proportions of the 18-24 vote. Furthermore more, as a direct beneficiary of the record turnout, the AfD took by far the largest number of new voters (those who had not voted in the 2021 election), amounting to 2 million casting their votes for the insurgent.

Despite the putative chancellor, Friedrich Merz, reiterating his party’s refusal to work with AfD, its lead candidate, Alice Weidel, spoke of her party’s willingness to join a CDU/CSU coalition.

Nevertheless, there was a barb to Weidel’s offer, as she is described as “lashing out” at Merz, referring to his promise some years ago to halve the AfD’s vote share. A triumphant Weidel told her supporters: “They wanted to halve us, but the opposite has happened!”.

Deutsche Welle concedes that the AfD has managed to shape political discourse during the election campaign, capitalising on rising anti-immigration sentiment – fuelled in part by fatal attacks from asylum seekers. The party has pledged to close Germany’s borders to asylum seekers.

Merz, on the other hand, stands accused of hypocrisy (there’s a novelty for a politician), having worked with the AfD in late January to get a motion passed calling for tighter immigration rules after yet another deadly attack by a rejected asylum-seeker.

Two days later, we are told, he stood at the same lectern and recycled an inaccurate AfD claim about “daily” incidents of gang rape by asylum seekers as he tried to pass a law to restrict immigration, again with the backing of the “radical” right.

As for the AfD, the party had hoped for a higher share of the vote, so the result falls short of its aspiration of ending up neck-and-neck with the CDU/CSU or even beating it.

And there is very little prospect of the AfD reaching a compromise with the lead party grouping. In a post-election TV debate with the main parties’ top candidates, Merz explained that the AfD was pursuing “the wrong policies” for the country.

He cited different positions on foreign and security policy as the main reason for rejecting cooperation with the AfD, which is calling for Germany to leave the EU, a return to a national currency and an end to military support for Ukraine. Addressing Weidel directly, Merz said: “You want the opposite of what we want and that is why there will be no cooperation”.

For his own part. Merz says that it is clear that “America does not care about Europe” and has accused Elon Musk of election interference – the latter having openly supported the AfD, along with J D Vance. Merz complains that Germany has so far not supported Ukraine enough in its defence against Russia, hinting that he might increase Germany’s military assistance.

This, though, is not to be the last word. Weidel, we are told, has her eyes set on the future. She has already indicated her availability to be her party’s candidate for chancellor at the next election in 2029 when, she says: “We will overtake the CDU/CSU. And then we will get a mandate to govern”.

Given the nature of German coalition politics, even that seems unlikely though, as we are more likely to see a centre left-right alliance, along the lines of the French “cohabitation”, than a centre-right, far-right coalition.

For the moment, the Independent is speculating that it will be months before coalition negotiations are concluded, bringing us up to Easter, leaving Scholz as caretaker chancellor.

Confirming the “Uniparty” aspect of German politics, the most likely grouping is expected to be an alliance with Scholz’s failed Social Democratic Party and possibly, also, the Greens, these parties coming third and fourth with a projected 119 and 90 seats respectively. Merz says he would prefer to have just one coalition partner.

This will make if “game on” for the AfD. German political analyst, Nicolai von Ondarza argues that there is a strong feeling within the CDU that this is “a government of last chance” to fend off the appeal of the AfD and that they will “need to be more radical in delivering for economic growth and on migration” to do that.

But the AfD will likely spend the next few months trying to split the tentative coalition, “tempting” the CDU by using its increased voting weight to push proposals in the Bundestag on migration and tax policy that neither the SPD nor the Greens will support.

These “fun and games” will, of course, be watched closely in the UK, as the progress of the AfD is seen as a strong indicator of how Farage’s Reform UK might perform.

Given that, in the 2029 election – the same year as the next German federal elections – their vote may be so split that no single party gets a majority – the coalition performance in Germany will be closely studied, particularly in the context of a possible Conservative/Reform alliance.

In the shorter-term, though, there is unlikely to be any material change to German politics With a lame duck chancellor, a splintered vote and the parties focused on their coalition-building, there will be limited political bandwidth, so we may see little in the way of new initiatives.

However much the parties and the media try to downplay it, though, yesterday saw a truly remarkable result for the AfD, fighting attempts at suppression and with no legacy media support. Their appeal to new voters is indicative of a deep malaise in German politics and there is every reason to believe that the party will continue to gain in popularity.