Germany’s Democracy Problem

More than almost any other country, Germany is facing political unrest due to widespread opposition to mass immigration. The open borders policies since 2015 have fuelled the growth of a right-wing party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) that is poised to score important victories in two states of former the former East. An AfD win will be a direct challenge to the centrist government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

In September, voters in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern go to the polls. The AfD is polling very strongly, thanks above all for its signature call for restrictive immigration policies. Its opponents attack it as “fascist,” and as a return to Nazism. If the AfD succeeds in the election, Berlin will face a tough question: Will a party denounced so at odds with the federal government be allowed to govern a state when voters give it the numbers to do so?

So far, German politics has maintained a strict “firewall” against the AfD with a complete political boycott. Other parties refuse any cooperation whatsoever. Banning the AfD from normal political give-and-take has however had the unintended effect of protecting it from responsibilities. As a result, voter curiosity keeps increasing. The more the party is denounced, the more the appeal grows.

The AfD currently polls around 40% in Saxony-Anhalt and close to 28% nationally. Its proposed restrictions on immigration resemble conservative positions in other countries that have faced large-scale illegal immigration. These anti-immigration policies are simply not evidence of the “fascism” its opponents allege. Yet because those critics imagine the AfD to pose a mortal threat to democracy, they explicitly call for its prohibition. They miss the irony that banning a party with this level of popular support would undermine their own democratic credibility.

What happens when the AfD’s inexorable march toward electoral victory meets this uncompromising condemnation? Berlin will not be able to sit by easily if a state government is taken over by a party it judges so harshly. Yet if the central government in Berlin overrules the electorate in a state, a crisis of democratic legitimacy will ensue.

Germany has recently seen a smaller version of this dilemma. In 2020, Thomas Kemmerich, a liberal politician from the Free Democratic Party, was elected Minister-President of Thuringia with the help of AfD votes in the state legislature. Merely that cooperation with the AfD was enough for then Chancellor Angela Merkel to declare the result “unforgivable. ” She used her pressure to reverse the outcome, and Kemmerich promptly stepped down.

If the AfD wins in Saxony-Anhalt in September, the stakes will be much higher. Chancellor Merz cannot cancel a state election by fiat. However Germany’s constitutional order does contain emergency instruments. Article 37 of the Basic Law allows the federal government to compel a state to meet its federal obligations.This coercive tool has never been used: it is not clear how far the federal government can go to impose its will on a recalcitrant state.

Germany has a prior record in such matters. In 1932, Franz von Papen’s conservative national government used emergency powers to depose the elected Social Democratic government of Prussia, then Germany’s largest state. This “Prussian coup” weakened one of the last republican strongholds before Hitler’s accession to power. Any federal attempt today to neutralize an AfD state government would summon that history.

A more likely scenario in Sachsen-Anhalt is a spiral of confrontation. Germany has a culture of violent left-wing political protest. If the AfD takes power, large demonstrations are certain. Fringe elements will engage in violence. The state Interior Ministry, responsible for police oversight, would be led or influenced by the AfD. Images of police brutality against protestors could provide the pretext for federal intervention.

If elected, the AfD promises to take right-wing conservative steps in culture and education. It is sure to challenge gender ideology, postcolonial studies and state support for ideological art. Yet the prominence of these trends today in higher education and the art world is indicative of how much German cultural institutions are already politicized toward the left.

An AfD government will also try to keep its promises to limit immigration. There are news reports that some immigrant residents of Saxony-Anhalt are already considering moving out of the state, if the AfD comes to power. Such reports may themselves increase the vote for the AfD, since dissatisfaction with lax immigration policy remains the party’s strongest source of its appeal.

Washington should take note of the foreign-policy consequences for an additional reason. The AfD is softer toward Moscow than other parties. If an AfD-led eastern state presses for any opening to Russia, Berlin will resist. This would be especially sensitive in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, with its Baltic Sea ports and its history in the Nord Stream energy debates. The AfD is already calling for renewed import of cheap Russian energy to revive the moribund German economy. Moscow will see its interests in play and exploit any conflict between an AfD-led state government and Berlin. A regional German election can therefore quickly become more than a regional matter.

Much of the political leadership in Germany insists that the AfD is too dangerous to be allowed to govern. But many voters are ready to give it a mandate. If the AfD wins, democracy means that it deserves to govern. Once in power in Sachsen-Anhalt, it will try to execute its policies in that one small state. Whether those policies are productive will then be put to a test for the rest of Germany to see. That is how a federal system is meant to work. If however a victorious AfD is prevented from governing by some federal intervention, its opponents will have demonstrated that the system is democratic only when approved parties win.