In state elections in Thuringia and Saxony, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged to first and second place, respectively, with over 30 percent of the vote in both states. The left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW)—only in existence since January—came in third in both states, receiving more votes than any party in the current national governing coalition. This episode of The Zeitgeistexamines what motivated voters to leave mainstream parties for the political extremes, what dynamics are at play as the parties must now try to find coalition governments, and how the results could impact national policies now and the upcoming federal elections in 2025.



Host

Jeff Rathke, President, AGI

Guests

Eric Langenbacher, AGI Senior Fellow; Director, Society, Culture & Politics Program

Christian Schweiger, Visiting Professor, University of Cooperative Education Saxony



Transcript

Jeff Rathke

Well, I want to welcome all of our listeners to the first visit after the summer break with the Zeitgeist, and I’m glad to have with me today my colleague Dr. Eric Langenbacher, who is the director of our Society, Culture & Politics Program. Hello, Eric.

Eric Langenbacher

Hello, Jeff.

Jeff Rathke

It is the day after Labor Day, September 3rd, as we are talking, and the biggest thing in recent days has been elections in two of eastern Germany’s states, Saxony and Thuringia. We’ve got a really well-informed guest who can give us some perspective on this today. And what we’ve seen is a bit of an earthquake in German politics, one that perhaps people saw coming, dramatic gains by extreme parties in the two state elections. To understand what this means, how it affects the national level, and what we can expect in the future, I’m going to hand it over to you to introduce our guest and get us started.

Eric Langenbacher

Thanks, Jeff. I’m really pleased to introduce our third partner in this conversation, Dr. Christian Schweiger, who is a visiting professor at the University of Cooperative Education, Saxony. Previously, he taught at TU Chemnitz, Durham University, and Trinity College Dublin. His research concentrates on comparative European politics and comparative European political economy, and his most recent publications include “Governance under the Covid-19 Pandemic: Comparative perspectives on Germany and Hungary” as well as “The German Economic Model: from Germany’s Social Market Economy to Neoliberalism?” which was in the Oxford Handbook of German Politics. Welcome, Christian.

Jeff Rathke

And Christian, where are you joining us from today?

Christian Schweiger

From home, actually, from Chemnitz, where we’ve got obviously the big Karl Marx head in the city center.

Jeff Rathke

So you are joining us from Saxony, which is particularly appropriate. Eric, back to you.

Christian Schweiger

Exactly

Eric Langenbacher

All right. Well, we have much to discuss, but I thought I would start with a little overview of what actually happened on Sunday in Saxony and Thuringia. The big takeaways are that the right-wing populist AfD, the Alternative for Germany, did very well in both states, but also a new political grouping, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), also did very well. In Saxony, the AfD got 30.6 percent of the vote, which was up 3.1 percent from the last election, whereas in Thuringia, it got 32.8 percent of the vote, which was a nearly 10 percent increase from the last election. But this Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, which is the left-populist alliance built around a former Left Party leader, got 11.