Preliminary results show that Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) scored significant gains in Sunday’s state elections in Thuringia. The far-right party overtook Merkel’s CDU to become the second-biggest party in the state parliament, behind the far-left Die Linke. Negotiations over coalition agreements will now begin. 

Die Linke win in Thuringia; AfD overtake CDU

Overall victory in Sunday’s election was claimed by Die Linke, who scored a vote share of 30 percent, according to early exit polls. The AfD more than doubled their vote share from 2014’s election to storm into second place with 23,4 percent. 

This result put them narrowly ahead of Angela Merkel’s CDU party, which dropped 11 percentage points to claim just 22 percent overall, its worst-ever result in the state. Merkel’s once powerful coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), took home only eight percent of the vote. 

The Greens and the FDP took home around 5 percent apiece, with the FDP dangerously close to missing the five-percent hurdle required to enter parliament. Overall, voter turnout was strong for this election, at around 65 percent compared to 52,7 percent in 2014. 

CDU has ruled out coalition with Die Linke

Die Linke will now seek to form a ruling coalition - a protracted process that can sometimes take months. They will mostly likely join forces with smaller parties like the SPD and the Greens, since, along with other mainstream political parties, the leftist party has pledged not to cooperate with the AfD. The CDU has also previously ruled out the possibility of entering into a coalition with Die Linke, on account of its hard-left stance, but there is some indication that CDU leaders in Thuringia might rebel against this party line. 

In September’s state elections in Brandenburg and Saxony, the AfD also made huge strides to become the second-strongest party in both federal states, scoring above 20 percent. Nonetheless, the SPD and CDU stuck firm to their pledge that they would not enter into a coalition with a far-right party. 

End of bitter election campaign 

AfD’s strong result in Thuringia marks the end of an election campaign that was overshadowed by death threats, bitter recriminations and the brutal attack on a synagogue in Halle earlier this month. 

Möhring, leader of the CDU in Thuringia, was targeted during the election campaign with messages containing the Nazi greeting “Heil Hitler!”  Neo-Nazis told him they would stab him in the neck or bomb one of his election rallies if he did not step down. In return, Möhring called the AfD’s local leader, the former history teacher Björn Höcker, a “Nazi”. 

Möhring’s reaction to Sunday night’s result was downcast: “For Thuringia and the democratic centre this is a bitter result,” he said. “We fought for this democratic centre and this democratic centre did not get a majority.”

Höcke and AfD’s rise continues

Höcke, on the other hand, was jubilant: “The sun is rising above the East and soon we will let the sun shine above all of Germany,” he told his supporters. “We have made the East blue and in just a few years we will be a people’s party for all of Germany.” Höcke has previously attracted controversy over his hardline opinions, once memorably referring to the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as a “monument of shame” and calling for a major turnaround in the way Germany marks its past. 

The AfD’s populist, anti-Islam, anti-refugee, anti-immigrant message has clearly resonated with plenty of people in the former communist East, where resentments linger over the purported neglect of the “new federal states” after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Since first entering parliament just two years ago, AfD has staged an astonishing rise to become the third-biggest party overall.