While the far right made historic gains in Germany’s pivotal federal elections on Sunday, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party ultimately thrived with Friedrich Merz securing nearly 29% of the vote and placing him in the top spot to lead the country.
Poised to become Germany’s next chancellor, Merz has yet to form a coalition with at least one other party in order to secure a majority in the German parliament, but he has already vowed to “achieve independence from the U.S.A.” in view of President Donald Trump’s indifference towards Europe.
These elections, which saw a record-breaking voter turnout of 83.5% (the highest since unification in 1990), saw the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party make historic gains to become the second largest political force in the country.
With around 21% of the vote, the AfD nearly doubled its result from four years ago as immigration, crime, inflation, unemployment and the war in Ukraine became hot-button issues that helped galvanized support for the populist, Eurosceptic party, which leads in eastern Germany. The rise of the far right in the country has also been fulled by a series of attacks that have involved immigrants, the latest of which happened on Feb. 13 in Munich, on the eve of the Berlin Film Festival, and caused dozens of injuries.
Sunday’s snap election was triggered by the collapse in November of Germany’s coalition government made up of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s left-of-center Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP). Disputes over budget and economic policy led Scholz to fire FDP finance minister Christian Lindner, ending the coalition.
For the moment, there appears no chance of the AfD joining a new government with the CDU as Merz has rejected forming a coalition with the party, which remains a pariah in Germany’s political establishment.
The AfD has nevertheless won strong support from the Trump administration – Musk in particular has championed it as the only party “that can save Germany.”
For Merz, that support appears to have gone too far. Taking part in a discussion on broadcaster ARD on Sunday, Merz said it was his “absolute priority to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that we can really achieve independence from the U.S.A. as quickly as possible.”
Merz, a traditionally pro-American politician and former exec at Blackrock, said he would have never imagined saying something like that on television but stressed that Trump’s recent statements made it clear that his administration was “largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”
He also questioned the future of NATO and said it may be necessary to establish an independent European defense capability, noting that he had “no illusions at all about what is happening in America — just look at the recent interference in the German election campaign by Mr. Elon Musk.
“The interference from Washington was no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interference we saw from Moscow,” he added. “We are under so much pressure here from two sides that my absolute priority now is really to create unity in Europe.”
German security officials have accused Russian actors of spreading disinformation online with fabricated videos claiming election fraud in the country in the run-up to Sunday’s vote.
For Merz, navigating such a new kind of relationship with the U.S. may be challenging despite his own extensive ties to the business world. A corporate lawyer, Merz served as a member of parliament, or the Bundestag, from 1994 to 2009, when he left politics for a private sector career that saw him take seats on numerous corporate boards, including the supervisory board chairman of Blackrock Germany from 2016 to 2020. What effect those ties may have on his administration remains to be seen.
Merz’s election was actually welcomed by Trump who hailed it as “a great day” for Germany in a post on his social network Social Truth on Sunday.
“It looks like the conservative party in Germany has won the elections… This is a great day for Germany and the United States of America, under the leadership of a ‘gentleman’… Congratulations to everyone,” Trump wrote.
Trump is not the only problem Germany is facing. The country is currently undergoing a period of economic decline as it struggles with such major challenges as inflation, immigration and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, including the end of cheap Russian gas that for decades powered Germany’s industrial might.
While votes are still being tallied late into the night Sunday, a coalition between the CDU and the SPD, which managed 16% of the vote, or a larger one with the SPD and Green Party (12%) is seen as likely. However, political analysts see a three-way coalition as potentially dysfunctional due to the major policy differences between the CDU and Greens.
Taking part in a roundtable discussion on Sunday on broadcaster ARD, AfD head and chancellor candidate Alice Weidel said the CDU had “completely copied our program, adopted our entire position” but would “not be able to implement it with leftist parties.”
Weidel said the AfD was extending its hand to the CDU, noting that Merz may not be willing to accept it but perhaps others in the CDU would. Weidel warned that a coalition between the CDU, SPD and Greens would result in an “unstable government that would not last four years” and the AfD would end up overtaking the CDU in the next few years.
While widely rejected by the establishment, the AfD and its policies, including its stark anti-immigration stance and demonization of pro-Palestinian activists, seem to have had a profound impact on Germany’s other leading parties.
The AfD’s stance on cultural issues was also evident in the recent revamp of federal film funding.
The AfD has long rejected diversity, gender equality, inclusion, anti-discrimination and sustainability as film funding criteria – standards that were championed by Green Party culture minister Claudia Roth in her ambitious reform of film funding legislation.
Yet, it was the FDP that killed the draft law’s planned diversity advisory board and ecological sustainability guidelines when it agreed to provide its decisive vote for the measure in December, saying it was seeking to do away with “bureaucratic advisory councils.”
