Saxony-Anhalt’s green island stretches from the old town via Herrenkrug and Kreuzhorst to Zipkeleben. Here in Magdeburg’s constituency II, Madeleine Linke (29) has the best chance of moving into the state parliament as a direct candidate in the state elections this Sunday. The Greens are not only in their party, but also among almost all other parties (SPD, FDP and Left) nationwide who could succeed in breaking the dominance of the CDU. And that of the AfD.
In the rest of the east German state there is a duel between the Christian Democrats and the right-wing populists. And that is getting closer and closer. If the CDU, which is the current Prime Minister with Reiner Haseloff (67), was well ahead of the AfD for a long time, it could now be tight. The latest survey sees the AfD (26 percent) only one percentage point behind the CDU. The other parties range from 7 to 12 percent.
“We are dealing with people who are partly socialized by dictatorship in such a way that they have not reached democracy even after 30 years,” said the Federal Government’s Eastern Commissioner, Marco Wanderwitz (45), recently tough about the high proportion AfD voters. Only a small part is “potentially retrievable”, so one can only hope “for the next generation”.
It’s not just the old who vote for AfD
“The statements are an indictment,” says the political scientist Ursula Münch (60), director of the Academy for Political Education in Tutzing (Bavaria), on Sunday view. Politicians would have to devote themselves much more to the causes.
The “Zeit” describes Saxony-Anhalt as the “East of the East”: the decline of major industries was particularly brutal here after 1990, and unemployment was particularly high.
As a result, East Germans are more afraid of change, says political scientist Münch. Social change – for example through immigration or the pandemic – would be rejected more strongly than in the West. “Because you have already seen and experienced how much this affects your personal biography.”
A look at the numbers also shows that it is not just the old who vote for the AfD. The rights are strongest among men between 35 and 55 years of age.
“The feeling of not being adequately taken into account seems to be articulating more and more and is passed on from generation to generation,” says Münch.
CDU MPs flirt with AfD
The fact that around a quarter of the 2.2 million inhabitants toying with the extremists is a vicious circle. Structural problems such as the shortage of teachers and medical care are exacerbated. How does a country with strong rights want to attract skilled workers from home and abroad?
Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff resists the AfD, but is in a dilemma. It is considered a small miracle that his “Kenya coalition” with the SPD and the Greens held up. Quite a few CDU MPs would rather team up with the AfD than with the Greens again. Interior Minister Holger Stahlknecht (56) openly proposed a minority government tolerated by the AfD last December – Haseloff kicked him out of office on the same day.
Although Saxony-Anhalt is comparatively small, Federal Berlin is also looking to this Sunday’s election. It is the last state election before the federal election in September. If the CDU does badly – or even loses it against the AfD – that would be a low blow for party leader and chancellor candidate Armin Laschet (60).
After all, the danger from the right at the federal level is significantly lower. Here, after its high in the refugee crisis, the AfD is currently only bobbing at around 10 percent.