It’s not just the AfD that poses a major threat in this weekend’s regional elections – while traditional moderate parties are failing to inspire voters, says commentator and broadcaster John Kampfner
Sahra Wagenknecht, founder of the BSW party, addresses a campaign rally in Altenburg, Thuringia, eastern Germany on 20 August, 2024Sahra Wagenknecht, founder of the BSW party, addresses a campaign rally in Altenburg, Thuringia, eastern Germany on 20 August, 2024It’s not just the AfD that poses a major threat in this weekend’s regional elections – while traditional moderate parties are failing to inspire votersritain is emerging, albeit grumpily, from eight years of Conservative mayhem.
All this comes a year before a general election that will end five years of indecision and bickering among the three-party “traffic light” coalition of Olaf Scholz’s SPD, the Greens and the FDP. The CDU will almost certainly lead a new coalition, but what kind of coalition and what kind of CDU – because the party of Merkel is unrecognisable from a few years ago.
The real villain of the piece is Christian Lindner, head of the FDP and finance minister. Throughout postwar Germany, the FDP has usually, but not always, scraped over the 5% hurdle to get into parliament, several times becoming junior partner to governments of the centre-right and centre-left. Some of the statesmen of yesteryear, such as longtime foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, were Free Democrats.East German culture has been ignored for too long.
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