A week ago I was in Erfurt for a press conference organized by the Foreign Press with all the candidates for the elections in Thuringia. The room was full, including colleagues from authoritative international newspapers. Chatting with a local journalist, he told me of his surprise at so much attention: Thuringia is usually a suburb, no more, no less. Sure, it hosts great centers of continental culture and history. But with little more than two million inhabitants, it is a politically insignificant phenomenon. And yet, this time the interest in the local elections was very high.

And expectations have not been betrayed: Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the far-right party, becomes the leading political force with 32.8% and thirty-two seats. To understand the enormity of the thing: the conservatives of the CDU, second, are almost ten points behind and obtain twenty-three seats. Things are slightly better in the other Bundesland where voting took place yesterday, Saxony: here, in fact, the CDU of the outgoing president Kretschmer is holding up, confirmed as the leading political force with almost 32% but the government of conservatives, social democrats and greens no longer has a majority, albeit by a whisker.

The success of AfD was a given, polls had predicted it for some time and it was also facilitated by the new party of Sahra Wagenknecht, born from a split from the Linke. The new formation in fact took votes away above all from former comrades, managing to impose itself in a head-to-head. A fratricidal fight that cost Bodo Ramelow, a good administrator and the first and only president of a Land of the Linke, his seat in Thuringia. Some had hypothesized that at least in Thuringia Wagenknecht would decide not to present his own lists: no way, the message to be sent to Berlin was too important and, therefore, local politics was expendable. After all, just last week the surprise of many colleagues was precisely the absence of local issues from the electoral discussion: everything was discussed – including support for Ukraine, which took away many votes from Ramelow due to his very clear position while Wagenknecht’s party, open to unspecified “negotiations”, benefited.

Now Wagenknecht has earned herself another year of TV appearances on the main German networks, to continue selling a supposed alternative to the politics of traditional parties: from Ukraine to immigration, she will play all the cards of populism to capture all the votes of the Left and ensure a nice parliamentary group in the federal elections of 2025. To do what? Who knows. For now the point remains: over half of the votes of the Left in 2019 went to her party and the only result achieved was to wipe out the most left-wing local government of the last thirty years.

Far-right wins in Thuringia and flies to Saxony: “Historic result”

Now a complicated phase is opening up in Saxony and Thuringia. Just over four years ago, again in Thuringia, there was chaos over the election of a liberal president with AfD votes. This time, the extremists could place their candidate: in the first two elections, an absolute majority is required, but in the third round, a simple majority is enough. And here, it is the conservatives who must open up to new constellations, imagining programmatic alliances to make the institutions work, paralyze the AfD extremists and overcome this difficult test for democracy. In Saxony, Kretschmer’s words are good, aware of the difficulties of building an alliance even with Wagenknecht’s party.

But it is not impossible: the programs will have to be made on local politics and here, once the election campaign tones are over, we will have to work on concrete issues and Kretschmer, a skilled and capable politician who has led a government with social democrats and greens until now, could demonstrate that democracy, when its representatives want it, can also work between very different forces. The situation in Thuringia is more complicated: once the Ramelow government has been eliminated, an alliance will have to be sought between parties that have almost never collaborated and, above all, divisions must be prevented from paving the way for the election of an AfD president. Which in Thuringia could mean the election of Björn Höcke, a radical extremist “watched” by the same internal service for the defense of the Constitution. It is an important test for the parties and their credibility: building a clear and credible program presupposes that the conservatives abandon their absurd equation between Linke and AfD. Four years ago it didn’t go well, let’s hope they’re more careful this time.

Finally, a few notes on the Berlin government: the government coalition is doing badly, especially the liberals, who remain outside the Thuringian parliament. Bad but not terribly bad: I doubt that the vote will influence the fate of the government, perhaps the attack in Solingen could have more effects. Better to stay at the helm of parliament and ministries for another year to try to get back on track. After all, there are no credible alternatives, also because the current balance of power forces all parties to change their strategies. It won’t be easy.

The new anti-migrant left could go to government