A political earthquake, what East German elections mean for the future of democracy in the country

The famous Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, a must-be-there for the German political elite, typically ends in late August with the final piece of “The Ring of the Nibelungen”; Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods). Had politicians stayed for a couple more days and gone a bit north of Bayreuth, they could have experienced the “twilight” of the established German party system, writes Peter Hefele.

Peter Hefele is Policy Director at the Wilfried Martens Centre in Brussels.

The recent elections in the federal states of Thuringia and Saxony saw the unprecedented decline of two, or even three traditional pillars of the German party system, marking a turning point in German political life. The Liberals and the Social Democrats, despite groundbreaking transformations in the 20th century, had each been cornerstones of Germany’s party system since the 1860s.

They have now sunk into political insignificance, counting together only for less than 15 per cent of the votes. The other remarkable fact is the further weakening of the traditional left. Are we now observing the emergence of a new three-block party landscape with two radical, populist parties on the left and the right; and a moderate conservative, Christian-democratic force still holding ground at the centre?

Too quickly did party headquarters in Berlin and mainstream media commentators resort to explanations such as a different political culture in East Germany or a lack of communication. Instead, they should have started with a radical reflection of what, how, and why the erosion of these parties’ power basis happened. The illusion of preserving long-cherished ideological assumptions, paternalistic attitudes towards voters and low-quality political craftsmanship of the ruling parties all dispersed last weekend.

What consequences and lessons shall we draw for the German party and constitutional system, yet keeping in mind that these had been (only?) regional elections? Any answer must consider at least two dimensions.

The immediate constitutional challenge is to form workable governments against a set of arithmetically possible but politically almost suicidal “options”. That means forging together the most incompatible forces on the extremes and in the centre, forces which share hardly any common ideological ground.

In Thuringia and Saxony, but even beyond, these forced marriages and the necessary compromises could aggravate the situation even more as this might alienate both left and centre-right voters from their parties. Such an outcome could lead to even more instability.

To better understand what is at stake from a mid-term structural perspective, however, one has to look into the developments during the last 15 years inside the German party system, including parallel developments on the European level.

Let’s start with political liberalism. These days, one can hardly find a specific contribution of liberalism to current challenges. Gender and human rights issues are now widely shared among centre, green and left parties. Nor is liberalism, in a traditional understanding, at least in Europe any longer a strong advocate for a genuinely market-based economic order, as this political movement has never really recovered from the strokes of the financial crisis of the 2000s and broad distrust in unregulated markets.

Social democrats share the same fate of having lost their specific political market and genuine messaging. The radical transformation of industrial production and outright deindustrialisation have dwarfed their social basis while promoting progressive values doesn’t resonate much with the working middle class. And concepts of social security are often nothing more than a return to the traditional welfare state of the 1970s.

The traditional left in Germany couldn’t fill this gap despite a strong basis in East Germany. Internal fights have worsened the situation and alienated the party organisation from its potential voters. It was only a matter of time before a populist left alternative to the “Alternative für Deutschland” (AfD) entered the ring. The impressively rapid rise of the “Bündnis Sarah Wagenknecht” (BSW) is probably the most striking phenomenon for the accelerating evolution of the German party system, where the combination of leftist social policy demands and social-conservative values is relatively new.

Moderate conservative and Christian-democratic forces, however, are facing the most difficult challenges in the coming months and years. The German Christian Democrats and several of their European sister parties still fulfil their role as anchors of political stabilisation in many countries, as the last European elections clearly showed.

Their political basis nevertheless, is also dwindling, particularly among younger voters. And divisive positions on traditional values or European integration are wedging their unity. For good reasons, these parties have self-imposed “firewalls” against extremist forces.

This has, however, also largely limited their strategic options for forging alternative coalitions with parties further to the right. Getting into coalitions with leftist parties might come at high costs and the further loss of conservative voters to the AfD.

Germany, once the exemplar of political stability, will go through a phase of political instability the likes of which it has not experienced since the establishment of the Federal Republic. Not that democracy will come to an end, as several domestic and foreign observers are repeating again and again.

The results of the elections, however, contributed to the further weakening of the once-leading European powerhouse, Germany, also aggravated by long-term structural weaknesses of the German economy, such as high energy prices or massive global competition in key sectors, like the automotive industry. Increasingly preoccupied with domestic challenges, you should not expect any European leadership from Germany any time soon.