(Bloomberg) — Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition was crushed in two regional elections in eastern Germany on Sunday, with populist parties on the extreme right and left winning about half the votes in both Thuringia and Saxony.
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The Alternative for Germany is on course for victory in Thuringia on 30.5%, according to exit polling conducted Sunday for public broadcaster ARD. If confirmed, it would represent the first triumph for a far-right party in a German state ballot since World War II, even if it’s highly unlikely to be able to form a government.
The three parties in Scholz’s alliance — his Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats — between them managed about 15% in each of the two states. The FDP missed the 5% threshold for getting into either regional parliament and the Greens fell short in Thuringia. The only mainstream party to do well was the conservative CDU, which won in Saxony and came second in Thuringia.
The results deal another bitter blow to Scholz and his deeply unpopular government and highlight the risk it faces ahead of the next national election due in just over a year. The picture looks equally dire for another state ballot in three weeks in Brandenburg — the region that surrounds the capital Berlin and is home to Scholz’s Potsdam constituency.
After months of squabbling over spending priorities, nationwide support for the three ruling parties has dwindled to record lows. Backing for the conservative CDU/CSU alliance is on around 32% — roughly the same as the SPD, Greens and FDP combined — and the AfD is in second place on about 18%.
Although not unexpected, the battering for the ruling parties in Saxony and Thuringia could prompt renewed calls for an early general election and fuel debate about whether Scholz is the right man to lead the Social Democrats into the ballot next September.
Despite its victory in Thuringia, the AfD — which authorities have classified as right-wing extremist in both regions that voted Sunday as well as nearby Saxony-Anhalt — has no clear path to forming a government.
In Sunday’s voting, a new far-left party, the Buendnis Sahra Wagenknecht, was on 16% in Thuringia and 12% in Saxony, according to the ARD exit polling. Founded only in January after Wagenknecht split from the Left party, it’s likely to play a key role in attempts by mainstream parties to keep the AfD out of power.
All other political groups, including the BSW, have ruled out cooperating with the party — a firewall similar to the one that thwarted Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally in France after President Emmanuel Macron called a snap legislative election in June.
That should limit any impact on financial markets, which were unsettled by the rise in popularity of French fringe parties.
Alice Weidel, a co-leader of the AfD, called the party’s performance “historic” and “a requiem for the coalition” in Berlin and said voters clearly wanted the AfD in government as the strongest party in Thuringia.
Scholz’s coalition “should be asking itself if it can even continue in office,” Weidel told ARD. “Things can’t continue like this.”
The CDU’s solid performance Sunday could also impact the process of choosing a conservative chancellor candidate.
As things stand, the leader of the party, Friedrich Merz, seems likely to secure the nomination and can claim some credit for the success in Saxony.
However, a number of other hopefuls can’t yet be ruled out, including North Rhine-Westphalia Premier Hendrik Wuest and Bavaria Premier Markus Soeder, who leads the Christian Social Union, the CDU’s sister party in the southern region.
Merz has said the CDU and CSU will decide on their joint candidate after the Brandenburg vote. The final state election before the next national ballot is at the beginning of March in Hamburg, the port city where Scholz used to be mayor and his SPD rules in coalition with the Greens.
Some 3.3 million people were eligible to vote in Saxony, which borders Poland and the Czech Republic, and about 1.7 million in Thuringia.
(Updates with AfD comment starting in 11th paragraph)
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