Populist surge crushes centrist ruling coalition in Germany
The results deal another bitter blow to Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his deeply unpopular government
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition was punished in two regional elections in eastern Germany on Sunday, with populist parties on the extreme right and left winning about half the votes in both Thuringia and Saxony.
The Alternative for Germany is on course for victory in Thuringia on 30.5%, according to projections Sunday for public broadcaster ARD. It represents the first triumph for a far-right party in a German state ballot since World War II, even if it’s highly unlikely to be able to form a government.
The three parties in Scholz’s alliance — his Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats — between them got less than 15% in each of the two states. The FDP missed the 5% threshold for getting into either regional parliament and the Greens fell short in Thuringia. The only mainstream party to do relatively well was the conservative CDU, which is projected to win in Saxony and finish second in Thuringia.
The results deal another bitter blow to Scholz and his deeply unpopular government and highlight the risk it faces ahead of the next national election due in just over a year. The picture looks equally dire for another state ballot in three weeks in Brandenburg — the region that surrounds the capital Berlin and is home to Scholz’s Potsdam constituency.
