Two weeks ago, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) was close to winning a majority in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. Last weekend, it won just over 38 percent of the vote in the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania election, while the traditionally largest right-wing party, the Christian Democrats (CDU), left the state parliament altogether.
“Die Brandmauer” - a political firewall meant to isolate extremist forces - remains. But as the AfD grows, the room for manoeuvre for other parties shrinks, as the election in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania shows.
The only possible coalition is one where all parties are against the AfD. It will look very strange. It is not just the established parties either, as the Left Party (Die Linke) is one of them, says Ann-Kristin Kölln, professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg.
Historical reasons
The firewall exists for reasons of principle, in a Germany where historical guilt still weighs heavily.
The AfD - which has appealed a government decision to label the party extremist - has been growing for a long time. In opinion polls, it is close to 30 percent nationally. The country has been governed by compromise-filled centrist coalitions for more than a decade.
The CDU and the Social Democrats, SPD, have tried to meet public opinion, among other things, by tightening immigration policy.
They have really tried in every possible way to address it in various substantive issues, but now I don't think there is any more room for it, says Ann-Kristin Kölln.
A major obstacle is the AfD's clearly more positive attitude towards a belligerent Russia, which is accused of atrocities in Germany and several allied countries.
"SD less radical"
In Sweden, a growing Sweden Democrats were kept out of parliamentary work and government talks for a long time, but right-wing parties reconsidered this and entered into a government partnership with the SD in 2022.
"The Sweden Democrats are, have become, much less radical than the AFD. The SD has thrown out people who have expressed themselves radically. The AFD almost strategically tries to keep them in the party in order to recruit different groups of voters," says Kölln.
For the CDU, it would require a major U-turn. The party has written into its statutes that it will not cooperate with the AFD or Die Linke.
It requires a much larger internal process, so I think we are quite far from a kind of Tidö Agreement, says Kölln, who believes that even more informal cooperation would be too charged.
Alternative for Germany (AFD) was founded in 2013 with a focus on the consequences of the euro crisis, which was considered to have been mishandled by the Merkel government.
The party quickly gained a boost in public opinion but failed to enter the Bundestag that same year.
In 2016, a new party programme was adopted, in which opposition to immigration and criticism of Islam were given a more prominent place.
Since then, the party's political orientation has become increasingly radical. In several states, the party is monitored by security services after being classified as far-right and deemed to pose a threat to democracy.
The party wants to limit Germany's role in the EU and NATO. It wants Germany to have a close relationship with Russia.
