Germany: Liberals and conservatives join with fascists to oust the left from state government

(Elke Wetzig/ Creative Commons)

On February 5, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and free-market liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) joined forces with the far-right Alternativ für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany - AfD) to remove a left wing government from power.

This major political upset is the first time since World War Two that a German government has assumed power with the help of a far-right party. It represents a first - but probably not last - breach of the “cordon sanitaire” that mainstream parties had placed around the AfD, rejecting all collaboration with a party that is being increasingly seen as a fascist threat.

For the past five years, the small former East German state of Thuringia has been governed by a rare “Red-Red-Green” coalition of the socialist Die Linke (“The Left”), the Social Democrats (SPD), and the Greens. Even more unusually, the largest party in this formation was Die Linke, and their leader Bodo Ramelow took on the role of state Premier.

In last year’s state election, while Die Linke’s vote increased a further three points to 31 percent - and 29 seats - their allies slumped. The SPD fell to 8 percent and lost a third of its seats, while the Greens also went backwards, only narrowly crossing the 5 percent threshold required to enter parliament. As a result, the three-party left-coalition government lost its majority.

On the other hand, the AfD surged to 23.4 percent, doubling their seats to 22, while the CDU, whose election campaign was centred on one removing the socialist Ramelow and his left coalition from power, fell 12 percent to an historic low, and lost 13 seats. The FDP, who had spent the previous five years in the political wilderness, scraped over the 5 percent threshold by only 73 votes.

With the far-right on the ascendant, there was some pressure on both the CDU and FDP to provide external support to allow the governing left coalition to return to work. Both parties refused.

The vote on February 5 was therefore a key test for finding a formula for government. The first two rounds proved inconclusive, with Ramelow winning first 43, then 44 votes - more than the Red-Red-Green coalition but still short of the 46 seat majority in the 90 seat parliament.

His rival, the AfD candidate Christoph Kindervater, scored 25 and then 22 votes. While the AfD holds only 22 seats it seemed that three members of the CDU had voted for the fascists’ candidate in the first round, while the rest of their party abstained.

A strong taboo is attached to the AfD, whose leader in Thuringia - Björn Höcke - is particularly notorious. In a 2014 email to colleagues, Höcke advocated abolition Section 130 of the German Criminal Code, which criminalises "incitement of hatred towards other groups of the population”, a  move that would have legalised Holocaust denial.

Höcke - who leads an extreme-right wing within his party - has marched along side open Neo-Nazis and repeatedly criticised Germany for its “moronic” commemoration of the Holocaust, advocating a "remembrance policy change by 180 degrees”. In September 2019 a court in Thuringia ruled that it was not only legal - but also “based on a verifiable factual basis” - to describe Höcke as a “fascist”.

Despite this, there is an ongoing debate in the CDU - both in Thuringia and across Germany - about how to deal with the rise of the AfD. One wing of the party supports the “cordon sanitaire” and refusing any form of collaboration with an increasingly openly fascistic AfD.

Others in the party, however, are concerned that after nearly a decade of a federal “Grand Coalition” with the centre-left SPD, the CDU is losing its right-wing supporters to the insurgent AfD. They therefore advocate working with the AfD to “bring them inside the tent”, and thereby - they hope - moderate them.

With no candidate winning in the first two rounds, the vote went to a third round, in which a simple majority of votes in favour would be enough to win. With Ramelow 20 votes ahead of the AfD candidate, and with the CDU abstaining, it looked likely that his Red-Red-Green alliance would be returned, albeit as a minority government.

Then, out of the blue, the FDP put forward their candidate, 54 year old Thomas Kemmerich, for the position. While Ramelow again won 44 votes, the AfD unexpectedly abandoned their candidate, throwing their full support - and votes - behind Kemmerich.

The CDU, too, abandoned their previous position of abstention to vote for the FDP candidate, who was narrowly victorious with 45 votes. It is difficult to consider these moves as coincidence, even if no formal coalition negotiations between FDP and CDU were conducted.

So, despite the party winning barely 5 percent of the vote, the Free Democratic Party’s candidate was elected Premier, thanks to an unholy alliance with the CDU and the fascists, effectively tearing down the 75-year post-war cordon sanitaire against the fascists.

Reaction

The negative reaction was immediate, and visceral. Emergency demonstrations were called outside the FDP's national offices in Berlin and in other cities around the country.

Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, Die Linke’s Chair in Thuringia, dumped the congratulatory bouquet unceremoniously at Kemmerich’s feet and turned on her heel. She later described the vote as a “clear pact with fascism”.

Die Linke co-chair Bernd Riexinger said the decision was “a bitter day for democracy” and "a taboo-breaker that will have far-reaching consequences",  while Bundestag group leader Dietmar Bartsch called on Kemmerich to resign and for fresh state elections to take place.

The Greens also called for Kemmerich’s resignation, while SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil described the election as "the historic low point in German post-war history”. Germany's foreign minister Heiko Maas, also from the SPD, described the election as "completely irresponsible".

The reaction from the centre-right, however, was much more mixed.

Federal lawmakers from Kemmerich’s own party criticised the result, calling on him not to accept his election because of the AfD support.

Markus Söder, chair of the CDU’s Bavarian sister-party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), condemned the CDU’s actions in Thuringia as "unacceptable”, while CDU national leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer also criticised the Thuringia chapter of her own party, also calling for Kemmerich to resign and for new elections.

But Federal Government Commissioner for the East, Christian Hirte (who is also Vice-President of the CDU in Thuringia), congratulated Kemmerich for ousting the Red-Red-Green alliance.

CDU member, and former head of the Germany’s domestic spy agency, Hans-Georg Maaßen, celebrated the result as a “huge success”, saying “the main thing is that the socialists are gone”. He saved his criticism for his own party instead, accusing the CDU of abandoning its own members, and advocated an immediate political shift to the right.

A controversial figure, Maaßen was placed on “early retirement” from his role as spy chief in 2018 after he openly criticised the government and was accused of passing sensitive information to the AfD. In fact, the AfD even considered nominating Maaßen for the head of government in Thuringia, but he declined.

Thuringia's CDU state leader Mike Mohring responded to criticism of the vote by saying: "We are not responsible for the voting behaviour of other parties”, and the CDU in Thuringia has rejected calls for fresh elections, which would require a two-thirds majority to call.

It would also be conceivable that Kemmerich himself calls for a vote of confidence that he would hope to lose. To survive, he would need an absolute majority - 46 votes. If he lost, the parliament could vote for a new Premier. Neither of these options seem certain, and the AfD has indicated it would be happy to lend its ongoing support to a CDU-FDP minority government.

Although both the CDU and the FDP immediately ruled out a coalition with the AfD, the vote was a dangerous step towards the normalisation of a fascist force in Germany, with consequences that go far beyond one state.

The vote in Thuringia has an even more worrying precedent. Exactly ninety years ago, Thuringia was the first German government to incorporate the nascent Nazi Party into its ministry. Then - as today - the conservatives wanted to “tame” the Nazis by involving them in government. The rest is history.

As right-wing extremism expert Matthias Quent told newspaper Vorwärts immediately after the vote, unless the major parties and civil society react firmly and decisively, “a stream of [fascist] brown will pour out of little Thuringia into the rest of the Republic”.

Germany: SPD wins Bremen election amid record low voter turnout

The German city-state of Bremen went to the polls on May 10

Germany’s centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) has narrowly held on to power in the city of Bremen, Germany’s smallest state, after elections on May 10 saw the governing coalition returned with a diminished majority amidst a record low voter turnout.

While the SPD still topped the poll with 32.9 percent, its vote share was down 5.7 percent on the 2011 election, and marks its worst ever result in Bremen.

The SPD has governed the city-state – one of Germany’s main industrial centres – continuously since the end of World War Two. Bremen, with a population of only 655,000, has been hard hit by a gradual decline in the local shipbuilding industry and by weakened public finances.

It now suffers from Germany’s highest unemployment rate, at 11 percent, as well as high levels of debt. According to a recent report by German charity Der Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband, nearly a quarter of people in Bremen live in poverty, more than any other German state.

The level of political engagement has suffered as a result, with barely fifty percent of the electorate turning out to vote in this election – the lowest turnout in any poll in modern Germany history. 

Germany: Hamburg elections a win for SPD and smaller parties, but a blow against Merkel

State elections in Hamburg on February 15 saw the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) retain control of the traditionally left-wing city-state, while smaller parties of the left and right also made gains.

The SPD won 45.7 percent of the votes, equal to 58 seats in the city legislature – a result down 2.7 percent on the record margin it won in 2011. Having now lost the absolute majority the party held prior to the vote, SPD Mayor Olaf Scholz will need to find a coalition partner in order to form government.

The most likely candidate for this role is the Green Party, which has already indicated its willingness to enter a coalition. The Greens took 12.2 percent of the vote, a slight increase on the 2011 result.

On the other hand, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the biggest loser, dropping by 6.1 points to only 15.9 percent of the vote – barely enough to keep second place ahead of the Greens.

It was the party’s worst ever result in Hamburg and its worst result in a state election since 1959, and – when viewed in light of the 20 percent the CDU lost in 2011 – the result suggests that the conservatives are truly in crisis in the Hanseatic port city.

25 years after the Berlin Wall, socialists set to form government in Thuringia

Nearly twenty-five years to the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, socialist party Die Linke (“The Left”) looks set to form government in the eastern German state of Thuringia for the first time.

After two months of uncertainty following state elections held on September 14, the way has been cleared for Die Linke to enter government as senior coalition partner in December, alongside the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens, after nearly 70 percent of SPD members in Thuringia voted to enter a coalition government on 4 November.

While Die Linke has governed at a regional level before, as a junior partner to the SPD in Berlin and Brandenburg, this marks the first time they will lead a government.

It also marks the first time since German reunification that a socialist party will take charge of a government – a breakthrough for a party that has been treated as a pariah by the political and media establishment.

Germany: Free marketeers made to walk plank, Pirates gain

Elections in the German state of Saarland on March 25 have dealt a heavy blow to the federal coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) retained its 12-year hold on power, holding steady at 35.2% of the small state’s voters. But Merkel's allies at a federal level - the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) - were wiped out at the state polls.

The FDP’s share of the vote dropped from 9.2% in 2009 to a tiny 1.2%, well below the 5% required to enter parliament.

Nationally, the FDP is polling at barely 3% - down from a high of 14.6% at the last federal elections. It was booted out of five state parliaments last year, a trend that seems set to continue.

The centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) increased its vote by 6% to 30.6% - not enough to dislodge the CDU from government, but enough to force it into a power-sharing “grand coalition”.

The vote for the anti-capitalist party Die Linke (“The Left”) dropped from 21% to only 16.1%, giving it 17 seats in parliament.

This relatively poor result came despite Saarland being home to Die Linke’s popular and outspoken former leader Oskar Lafontaine, once dubbed “the shadow Chancellor” for his ability to influence German politics.

Germany's presidency: corrupt incumbent out - obnoxious right-wing ideologue in.

German President Christian Wulff resigned on February 17 after prosecutors applied to have his presidential immunity stripped in a corruption scandal.

Wulff has been accused of having received a series of kickbacks from businessmen, including a home loan of 500,000 euros (paid via an anonymous bank cheque) in 2008.

He is also accused of receiving favourable car deals, free hotel-stays, free airline upgrades and other perks during his time as premier of the state of Lower Saxony.

When German tabloid Bild threatened to publish the allegations, Wulff left voice messages on the editor's phone threatening "war".

As more corruption accusations surfaced, prosecutors in Hannover, capital of Lower Saxony, asked the Bundestag (federal parliament) to lift Wulff's presidential immunity.

Faced with the destruction of his credibility, Wulff resigned. He now faces possible charges and the loss of his parliamentary pension.

Under the German system, a new president must be elected within 30 days of the resignation of his predecessor.

Germany: Spies target left-wing party

Germany’s domestic spy agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has been exposed for spying on left-wing MPs.

German magazine Der Spiegel said on January 23 that the BfV spied on MPs from Germany's biggest left-wing party, the socialist Die Linke ("The Left").

Der Spiegel said the intelligence agency had 27 of Die Linke's members in the Bundestag - more than one third of its federal MPs - and a further 11 members of state parliaments, under surveillance, costing 390,000 euros a year.

The BfV spends about 590,000 euros a year on surveillance of the neo-Nazi German National Party (NPD), linked to violent racist terror groups.

Unlike the marginal NPD, Die Linke is Germany's fifth largest party, with representation in almost every state parliament and in the national Bundestag.

The individuals being spied on weren't "fringe" members either, but leading party members and MPs ― many are in the party’s “moderate” wing.

Pirates plunder Berlin as Merkel’s government founders

Elections in the city-state of Berlin on September 18 delivered another serious blow to the government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, even as her party’s vote increased.
 

Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) came in second place in the Berlin election, winning 23.4 percent of the vote – up from 21.3 in 2006.

The ruling centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) dropped slightly, from 30.6 to 28.6 percent, but will remain in government in Germany’s capital. SPD leader Klaus Wowereit – Germany’s first openly gay premier – is likely to replace his “red-red coalition” partners, the socialist Die Linke (“the Left”), with the more moderate Greens.

The Greens came third in the vote, winning 17.6 percent – a swing of 4.7 percent – while Die Linke slipped slightly from 13.4 to 11.7 percent.

During five years of coalition government, Die Linke has become implicated in the Berlin government’s antisocial policies and a 13 percent unemployment rate, damaging its social justice credentials.

The hotly contested question of whether – and under what conditions – Die Linke should enter into future coalitions will be debated in late October, when the party holds its national “Program Congress” in the city of Erfurt.

The surprise winner at this election was the Pirate Party, which took an astounding 8.9 percent of the vote, entering parliament for the first time with 15 seats.

State election defeat humiliates Merkel

Elections in the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on September 4 have handed the conservative government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel another humiliating defeat. 

Merkel's centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) had already suffered five election defeats this year, in Hamburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Rheinland-Pfalz, Bremen and the highly embarrassing loss of the wealthy conservative southern state of Baden-Württemberg – held by the CDU for sixty years – to the Greens.

The Mecklenburg-Vorpommern defeat was particularly galling for Merkel – who was born in Hamburg and raised in Brandenburg in the former East Germany – because the state includes her own electoral constituency.

On polling day, the CDU could only muster 23.1 percent of the vote, down by more than 5.7 percent since 2006 and its worst result in the state since German unification in 1990.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) were the clear victors, with 35.7 percent of the vote, an increase of 5.5 percent.

The socialist Die Linke ("The Left") – campaigning on a platform of social justice, democratic rights and action on the environment – won 18.4 percent of the vote.

Germany announces the phase-out of nuclear power

On May 30, the German government announced that all of Germany’s seventeen nuclear power stations would be permanently shut down by 2022.

Germany’s seven oldest nuclear power stations – temporarily switched off after public outcry and protests in the aftermath of the disaster in Fukushima – will remain offline, and will be permanently decommissioned.

An eighth plant – in northern Germany – is already offline because of technical problems, and will remain shut down for good.Six of the remaining 9 power stations will be shut down in 2021, and the final three will be turned off in 2022.

"It's definite: the latest end of the last three nuclear power plants is 2022," Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen told reporters. "There will be no clause for revision."

The announcement has been greeted with critical support from anti-nuclear and environmental organisations such as Greenpeace, who have maintained their call for an earlier phase out date of 2015.

The announcement is not an entirely new proposition, either. In 2001, the then coalition government of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the German Greens passed legislation to phase out nuclear power in Germany by the end of 2021.

Germany: Greens win historic electoral triumph

State elections on March 27 saw the German Greens win an historic victory in Baden-Württemberg – where they will form Germany’s first-ever Green-led government – and triple their vote in the Rheinland-Pfalz.

Riding on widespread public opposition to nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, the Greens doubled their support to 24.2 percent of the vote in Baden-Württemberg.

The centre-left Social-Democratic Party (SPD) won 23.1 percent of the vote – a small drop on their 2006 result – while the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won 39 percent of the vote, down by over 5 points.

The CDU’s ruling coalition partner – the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) – lost more than half its support, dropping to 5.3 percent – barely enough to remain in the Landtag (state parliament).

The socialist party Die Linke (“The Left”), which took 24 percent in state elections in the eastern state of Sachsen-Anhalt on March 20, won only 2.8 percent of the vote – not enough to enter parliament.

The results mean that Baden-Württemberg will be governed by a Green-SPD coalition, led by the Greens’ Winfried Kretschmann – a founding member of the party in Baden-Württemberg and now the first ever Greens state Minister-Präsident (Premier).

Germany: State election weakens Merkel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) survived a narrow vote in elections for the eastern state of Sachsen-Anhalt. 

The right-wing CDU lost 3% of the vote from the previous elections, dropping to 32.6% support. The two other big parties in the state, the far left Die Linke and the centrist Social Democrats (SPD), remained steady on 23.8% and 21.5% respectively.

Merkel’s allies at a federal level - the pro-free market Free Democrats - failed to cross the 5% threshold needed to win a seat, as did the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD). 

The lead NPD candidate Matthias Heyder is under investigation for discussing terrorist methods and bomb-making techniques on an online forum. Right-wing and racist violence nearly doubled in Sachsen-Anhalt in 2010.

Germany: Protests force nuclear closures after Fukushima disaster

Facing public outrage and concern over the nuclear meltdown unfolding in Japan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced the temporary shutdown of several of that country's nuclear reactors.

On March 12, over 60,000 anti-nuclear protesters in the south-western state of Baden-Württemberg formed a 45 kilometre human chain, stretching from Stuttgart to the Neckarwestheim 1 nuclear plant.

Smaller protests took place in more than 450 towns and cities across Germany, according to anti-nuclear organisation "Ausgestrahlt" (Irradiated), and more protests are planned for March 26.

Merkel responded by announcing on March 15 that all 17 German nuclear plants would undergo safety checks. Of these, the oldest seven – all of which began operating before 1980 – would be shut down for three months, beginning immediately with the Isar 1 power plant in Bavaria.

Two of the seven older plants are already shut down – one is undergoing maintenance, while the other was taken offline in 2007 after an accident.

The move has been criticised by anti-nuclear groups and opposition parties as inadequate, and as a cynical, dishonest manoeuvre, designed only to arrest the desperate decline in support for Merkel’s ruling part, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Germany's ‘hot autumn’ of protests

Germany’s centre-right government is facing what many have dubbed a “hot autumn” of protests, as conflict over a range of social, political and environmental issues come to a head across the country.

As the governments of Europe attempt to offload the costs of the financial crisis onto working people, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has initiated a series of “austerity” measures aimed to undermine Germany’s social welfare system.

About 100,000 trade unionists took to the streets on November 13 to protest cuts to social welfare, including government plans to raise the pension age from 65 to 67.

On November 15, Merkel was successfully re-elected leader of her party - the right-wing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) - with the support of over 90 percent of the party conference.

Facing criticism from the party's influential right-wing, Merkel has shifted her rhetoric rightwards, claiming that multiculturalism had "utterly failed", and calling on Germans to return to their "Judeo-Christian values".

The day before the CDU conference began, tens of thousands of protesters in Stuttgart, Dortmund, Nürnberg and Erfurt came out to oppose her government’s cuts.

Minister for labour Ursula von der Leyen has tried to defend the attack on pensions. Claiming it was necessary because of Germany’s low birth rate and high life expectancy, Von der Leyen described the move as “a question of fairness”.

Protesters, led by Germany’s largest union IG Metall, rejected the claim. They condemned the changes as an attack on working people designed to maximise corporate profits during the German economy’s current upswing.

Berthold Huber, head of IG Metall, told demonstrators in Stuttgart: “We don’t want a republic in which powerful interest groups decide the guidelines of politics with their money, their power and their influence.”

Germany: Two party system unraveling

Coasting on the back of environmental protests and a hemorrhaging two-party system, the German Greens have sent shock waves through German politics, surging into the position of main opposition party for the first time.

The Greens, who were part of a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) from 1998-2005 at the expense of many of the party’s principles, are benefiting from the unraveling of Germany’s tradition two-party system.

Nevertheless, the two major parties - the centre-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union coalition (CDU/ CSU) and the centre-left SPD - retain a monopoly over government in Europe’s biggest economy.

But the facade appears to be truly falling apart at last. Opinion polls in early October put the Greens on 24%, one point ahead of the SPD.

At the 2009 federal elections, the Greens scored 10% of the vote. The far-left Die Linke won 11.9%.

In recent polls, the governing CDU were at 32%, while their neoliberal fundamentalist Free Democratic Party (FDP) allies only reached 6%. Die Linke remained steady on 11%.

The Greens’ poll surge comes amid a rise in environmental and community protests.

Merkel embarrassed in presidential election

On June 30, the German parliament met to elect the country’s largely symbolic president. What should have been a fairly straightforward affair, however, may spell the beginning of the end for German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The new election was made necessary by the resignation of Horst Köhler on May 31, after his comments suggesting German military deployments were commercially motivated caused a public outcry.

Köhler’s resignation came at a particularly bad time for Merkel, whose governing rightwing coalition has been struggling in recent opinion polls.

Support for Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has dropped to just 32 percent, while their free-marketeer coalition partners, the Free Democrats (FDP) – who had surged around 15 percent support at the federal election in September last year – have dropped to barely 4 percent, the July 4 Angus Reid Global Monitor reported.

Popular opposition and protests continue to build against Merkel’s austerity measures, the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the economic bail-out of Greece as German standards of living continue to decline.

Germany in turmoil as president quits

The government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel is in crisis, following the resignation of Germany’s President Horst Koehler on May 31.

Koehler – a former head of the IMF, and German president since 2004 – resigned after public backlash against comments he made connecting the German economy with increased military deployments.

On a May 22 visit to the German military mission in Afghanistan – something which eighty percent of the German population are opposed to – Koehler told German radio that further military deployments were necessary “to protect our interests, for instance trade routes … or preventing regional instabilities that could negatively impact our trade, jobs and incomes."

Constitutional lawyer Ulrich Preuss called it a “discernably imperialist choice of words”, while Klaus Ernst, co-leader of the antiwar leftwing party Die Linke claimed that Koehler had “openly said what cannot be denied”. Ernst asserted that Afghanistan is a “war about influence and commodities” and defending the export interests of large corporations.

Facing enormous public outcry, Koehler resigned as President, citing a “lack of the necessary respect” for his position. A new president must be appointed within 30 days.

Germany: State election defeat hamstrings federal government

Germany’s ruling centre-right coalition suffered a double defeat on May 9, when it lost its ruling majority in an important state election in North-Rhine Westphalia. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) scored its lowest ever vote in the state, dropping 14 points to only 34.6 percent, on a par with the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) who slipped to 34.5 percent. 

Support for the arch-neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) – the CDU’s coalition partners on both a state and federal level – stagnated at 6.8 percent, while the Greens emerged as the big winners, doubling their vote to 12.1 percent.

The far-left party Die Linke also entered state parliament for the first time, winning 5.6 percent – an impressive achievement for what is possibly their most left-wing state branch, which has called for nationalising banks and other utilities and the legalising of cannabis.

North-Rhine Westphalia - Germany’s traditional industrial heartland and most populous state with 18 million inhabitants - is widely regarded as indicative of politics on a national level and currently has an unemployment rate of over 10 percent.

Germany: Left makes big gains in poll

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, from the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), was returned to power in the September 27 federal elections. But the vote was marked by a record low voter turnout and a significantly increased vote for the far-left party, Die Linke ("The Left"). 

The election was a clear success for the CDU. Merkel's preferred coalition partners - the free-market fundamentalist Free Democratic Party (FDP) - increased its support by 4.8 points to an all-time high of 14.6%. 

This was enough to form a CDU-FDP government.

The FDP will replace the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) as coalition partners in the government of Europe's largest economy.

The SPD's support collapsed by more 6 million votes. It dropped a huge 11.2% to only 23% – the SPD's worst result since World War II. An SPD leader said on election night: "We have been bombed back into the Weimar Republic."

However, although the result has been widely labelled a shift to the right, the actual outcome doesn't bear this out. The total vote for the centre-right parties rose by only 3.4%, while the vote for the far-right neo-Nazi NPD dropped to just over 1%. 

The vote for Die Linke was 11.9% - a 3.2% increase on the 2005 result by the joint electoral ticket of two left-wing groups that was the forerunner to Die Linke. Formed in 2007, Die Linke is Germany's newest party and stands for pro-people, anti-corporate policies. 

Die Linke is also the only party that opposed the occupation of Afghanistan and has committed to withdrawing all German troops.

German Left Party makes election gains

Before the recent elections in the German states of Thuringia, Saarland and Saxony it seemed likely that Christian Democrat (CDU) German Chancellor Angela Merkel would return to power comfortably this year, probably in coalition with the free-market fundamentalists of the Free Democratic Party (FDP).

On August 30, however, German voters went to the polls in the three states and for local elections in North Rhine Westphalia. The result — an unmistakable swing to the left — has blown prospects for the September 27 German federal elections wide open. Both big parties — the centre-right CDU and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) — received heavy blows.

In national opinion polls, the SPD (a junior partner in a federal "grand coalition" government with the CDU) has slumped to a historic low of 22%. On August 30, its vote continued to decline. The SPD polled only 10.4% in Saxony, and 18.5% in Thuringia.

However, the biggest loser was the ruling CDU. Its vote dropped by more than 13 points in both Thuringia and Saarland — the worst results since 1949. It will probably lose government in both states.