In the space of two weeks, Germany’s political landscape has changed. On 6 September, the AfD won 43.8% of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt, more than double its 2021 score, on a record turnout of around 77%. On 20 September, it won Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with 38.2%, ahead of Manuela Schwesig’s SPD on 35.5%. The same evening, in Berlin, it was the other end of the political spectrum that prevailed: Die Linke, a distant heir to the East German Communist Party, came first for the first time with 25.7%, far ahead of the CDU on 18.8%.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke of a “disaster”. The word is well chosen. In Mecklenburg, the CDU fell from 13% to 4.9% and lost all representation in the regional parliament — its worst result in a regional election since the war. The party of Adenauer and Kohl no longer exists in a German Land.
A double revolt against the centre
What has just found expression is a rejection of the centre, from both its right and its left. The AfD and Die Linke, which are opposed on everything, thrive on the same ground: the former GDR, which still lags behind the West on every economic and social indicator, and whose inhabitants moreover feel looked down upon by their compatriots in the West.
To this long-standing resentment is added a more recent anger, an economic one this time. For three years, Germany has been stagnating, with its industry paying more for energy than its competitors. Voters in the East, who saw their industrial heartland emptied once already after reunification, seem to have drawn their own conclusions. Mecklenburg is indeed no ordinary Land: it was at Lubmin that the Nord Stream pipelines came ashore. Manuela Schwesig had supported the project, before acknowledging after the invasion of Ukraine that her position had been a mistake. Mecklenburg’s voters clearly did not all make the same journey, since her party (the SPD) has just been overtaken by the AfD, which campaigned for the repair and reopening of the pipeline.
Ukraine, the blind spot of the debate
The Länder have no competence in foreign policy. But these elections do have a geopolitical dimension, one that European commentators prefer to ignore. The AfD wants to lift the sanctions against Russia and end arms deliveries to Ukraine, and it did not play these themes down during the campaign. Quite the contrary. In Saxony-Anhalt, its candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, even promised to offer Russian in schools and to relaunch educational exchanges with Russia.
These positions are not marginal in public opinion. As early as 2025, the Security Radar survey by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which is close to the SPD, showed that 53% of Germans wanted a negotiated settlement of the war, even at the cost of Ukrainian territorial concessions, and that 59% feared a nuclear escalation. Between the consensus of the governing parties and the preference of a large part of the population, the gap has kept widening. The AfD did not create this divide: it occupies it.
Germany is entering a period in which its elites, largely discredited — according to ARD’s DeutschlandTrend survey, only 13% of Germans say they are satisfied with Chancellor Merz’s performance — will have to choose: revise their policy, or continue to govern against a growing share of their voters. European history teaches that the second option never lasts very long.