The elections in Thuringia and Saxony are being held a week after three people were stabbed to death and eight wounded while attending a town party in the western German city of Solingen. A 26-year-old Syrian man has been arrested and charged with the crime.
Opinion polls show that the strongly anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) is likely to win the election in Thuringia with around 30 percent of the vote. In Saxony, it is almost the same with the Christian Democratic CDU. The AfD is still unlikely to come to power in either state, as the other parties prefer to cooperate with each other to form a governing majority rather than cooperate with the AfD.
Nevertheless, the election could be a real setback for German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz from the social democratic SPD and the two other governing parties – the Green and liberal FDP.
In both states, the SPD is likely to get approximately 6 percent of the vote, according to opinion polls. These are disappointing figures for the party just one year before Germany is to elect a new national assembly.
Asking for more deportations
After the knife attack in Solingen, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser emphasized that the government has already made arrangements for the states to deport people whose asylum applications have been rejected.
In an interview with Funke Mediengruppe, she therefore encourages them to do more to get the deportations carried out.
– The key to success is primarily that the new powers and regulations are implemented locally in the states, she says and states that the states have the government’s full support.
The Syrian who is charged with the murders in Solingen should have been deported to Bulgaria last year after having his asylum application rejected in Germany.
Saxony is the most populous state in the former East Germany, with approximately 4 million inhabitants and several large cities such as Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz.
Thuringia has about 2 million inhabitants and is the only state currently led by a politician from the left-wing Die Linke.
A third state in the east, Brandenburg, will hold elections later in September. Here, too, the AfD leads the opinion polls, with around 24 percent support. The AfD has never previously won a federal state.
Dissatisfaction with Berlin
After struggling with economic problems for years after the reunification between East and West, there has recently been stronger economic growth in the East than in the West. Wage growth has also been higher.
Nevertheless, differences and a sense of injustice persist in the East. The AfD not least gathers votes for its opposition to immigration, especially Muslim immigrants.
The elections are also being held at a time when economic growth has stopped, at the same time that Germans have witnessed a protracted dispute between the three governing parties over next year’s budget. Dissatisfaction with the government in Berlin has caused many protest voters to turn to the AfD, according to analysts.
Marianne Kneuer, professor of political science at Dresden University of Technology (TU Dresden) believes that the AfD is doing particularly well in the former communist states because the party’s core voters there can identify with what she refers to as the AfD’s nationalist and authoritarian positions.
BSW, a new party formed by leftist Sahra Wagenknecht, is also likely to do well in the three states. Among the issues that attract attention is the party’s no to arms deliveries to Ukraine.
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2024-08-28 23:54:06
