opinion
The new political conditions in Thuringia show themselves on this Tuesday in the composition of the Landtagspräsidiums. The inaugural session opens an AfD member of parliament as an old-age president, in the wake of which a left-wing president is elected, for the first time in Germany. An AFD candidate for the vice-post is rejected, a CDU politician with SED past receives a large majority.
And a government formation? In Thuringia still not in sight. No majority for anyone. CDU and FDP exclude cooperation with Left or AfD. It is not very likely that this Diet will stay together until the regular elections in five years.
Thuringia, with its complicated election results, is the last of the three East European countries to have voted this year. In Brandenburg meanwhile a Kenya coalition of SPD, CDU and Greens has formed against the AfD, in Saxony also everything runs out on such a constellation. The right-wing populists, who are even further to the right, set strong blockade blocks of about one quarter of the seats in all three state parliaments.
What follows? What are the lessons from the Eastern Elections 2019?
1. The East is split between AfD and all others
Much connects the three federal states that have chosen this year: the GDR past and the development afterwards - in the demographics, on the job market, in the countryside. Even the strong performance of the AfD with almost a quarter of the voters have the federal states in common.
It is true that in the three countries, even after the 2019 elections, there are three different parties to head the government: the SPD in Brandenburg, the CDU in Saxony and the left-wing executive in Thuringia. But the pattern is the same everywhere: The incumbent heads of government have prevailed.
This was mainly due to the polarization of the election campaign by right-wing populists. The decisive factor will be that the camps beyond the AfD become more visible again. If, for example, Bodo Ramelow did not respond to the attacks of his CDU opponent Mike Mohring during the election campaign, the electoral tactic may have been wise; he did not do democracy with democracy.
Therefore, it is also true that FDP and CDU have not been so easy as a majority fundraiser for a red-red-green government in Thuringia.
And that's why it's also right that the Greens and the CDU did not handle kid gloves in the Saxon election campaign. Or that the Greens and the CDU in Saxony-Anhalt regularly violently clash. One wants to enforce a different policy, the population has the choice.
The AfD is not the alternative she pretends to be in her party name. The other parties have to prove that again and again.
Monika Skolimowska / dpa
Brandenburg's Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke
2. There is still no cure for the AfD
Excluding, insulting, ignoring, tolerating, integrating, dismantling argumentatively, copying, in order to stand up to the AfD - in the three Eastern election campaigns one could observe all this. A breakthrough was achieved with none of these strategies.
It's as if the AfD found a cheat like in a computer game that keeps it growing. For every major issue, be it the euro, migration or now the climate, the AfD delivers a sinking scenario. The AfD scares people - and is chosen for it.
Thus, the three state elections also show that the other parties alone will not be able to change anything.
DPA / Martin Rubble
Thuringia's Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow
3. The AfD does not take any development like the Greens, the pirates or the leftists
Unanimously elected the AfD parliamentary group in Thuringia Björn Höcke after the election again to its chairman. They want Höcke, a rightist radical. Even in Brandenburg and Saxony, the supporters of the ethnic "wing" network sit within the AFD in the parliaments. Again and again there were new parties in the Federal Republic, which split up, like the pirates, split, like the republicans, or which found a gentle way in the middle, like the left and the greens.
In the three state elections, nothing was observed in the AfD. No quarrel, no division, no deradicalization. Almost without resistance, the regional associations continue to march to the right and are still elected - or for that very reason.
In any case conceived as years of disenchantment in responsibility is less and less to think of the AfD. Instead, it can be observed that it continues to establish itself as an outside right-wing party: When in Brandenburg the AfD parliamentary vice receives a bouquet of flowers from a SPD politician in his election with a beaming face. Or when AfD politicians to CDU election campaign events with Hans-George Maassen pull and one comes to chatting. When in the municipalities even candidates established by the Greens form a parliamentary group with the AfD.
4. The political dispute shifts into the back room
There is so much to argue. On how climate policy is shaped, how integration can succeed, what rural areas should look like in the future, and how skill shortages in the care sector are mastered. What about understaffing in schools and police stations, financing the community, rampant rents and lack of daycare in the big cities? And how do we deal with the violence of right and left extremists?
Constructive arguments in the matter between CDU, FDP, Greens, Left and SPD now take place in the coalition negotiations but behind closed doors.
For example, in Saxony, where the CDU and the Greens disagree on how to deal with full veiling in public space. It is debates that belong in just this public space, in the parliaments. The compromises among coalition partners are now being negotiated. Clear decisions become more difficult or even impossible to implement. This, in turn, threatens to benefit the AfD.
DPA / Martin Rubble
Election campaign of the Thuringian AfD in Erfurt
5. The work of Parliament is becoming more important
To see how the empowered AfD deals with its opposition role, it does not even take a look to Berlin, it is enough to look to nearby Magdeburg.
In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD has been the strongest opposition force since 2016. When the CDU Interior Minister Holger Stahlknecht was interviewed by the Interior Committee there recently after the assassination in Halle, an AFD member wanted to know which migration background the offender had. He alluded to an abstruse conspiracy theory that thrilled on the Internet. In Thuringia, the AfD once asked how many gays and lesbians there are in the state. The State Chancellery replied that such figures would not be recorded.
Put simply, the AfD carries tons of nonsense into parliament. Above all, this costs a lot of time, blocks the work. Every pebble would have to turn around the opposition at the security authorities after an assassination as in Halle. But the real opposition - the left in Saxony and Brandenburg, currently CDU and FDP in Thuringia - has become smaller due to the AfD achievements.
In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD now wants a committee of inquiry to the assassination in Halle, it is the seventh in the state, which is used by the AfD. The parliamentary options of the survey did not use them - instead of putting parliaments and authorities under pressure with their nonsensical questions, they paralyzed them.
On the one hand, politicians from the other political groups are pushed out of the parliaments by the AFD successes, on the other hand, initially opposing parties are forced out of state political responsibility together into the government.
All the more important is the work of the deputies of the government factions, they must control their own ministers in the future more. For many, this will be new territory.