A political quake looms in the coming year

The year 2024 could shake up the political landscape in Germany. The focus: state elections in three eastern German states. The AfD is hoping for electoral success, the traffic light coalition is facing difficult times and the CDU/CSU is facing a decision.

"Next year is the year of the AfD," said publicist Michel Friedman recently at the Römerberg Talks in Frankfurt. He looks towards the end of the 2020s with concern - Friedman fears that the first thoughts about coalitions with the right-wing party could then become socially acceptable at federal level. He sees the coming year as part of a possible development in this direction.

The high poll ratings for the AfD over the past few months seem like a premonition. The repeat of the Bundestag elections on February 11 in some Berlin constituencies is likely to bring only minor shifts, not a change in the balance of power. A stronger signal will probably come from the European elections and various local elections in June. The big bang could come in September if the AfD emerges victorious in one or even several state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg for the first time since its foundation. The election year 2024 will therefore be dominated by the question of whether the AfD's rise will continue - or whether the other parties can stop it.

A lot can still happen between now and the elections in the east, the general political climate can change quickly - and new competition from the left could also take voters away from the AfD. As always, everything is connected. Six events in particular are likely to make for a particularly turbulent year in terms of domestic politics:

January: foundation of the Wagenknecht party

Right at the start of the year, former Left Party politician Sahra Wagenknecht wants to shake up German politics by founding a new party. With fierce opposition to the economic, climate and transformation policies of the traffic light coalition and a restrictive migration policy, the 54-year-old also wants to woo voters away from the AfD. Those who are thinking about voting for the AfD out of anger should be given a serious address, says Wagenknecht. It is about filling a political void in the country.

Political scientists believe that a Wagenknecht party has considerable potential, especially in the east. Will she stop the AfD's rise? Party leader Tino Chrupalla told ZDF that he had "no beads of fear on his forehead". In January, Wagenknecht and supporters want to meet in Berlin for the founding party conference.

February: Decision on secret service monitoring of the AfD

In February, Münster will be dealing with an important legal issue that could also have an impact on the AfD's popularity: The Higher Administrative Court must clarify whether the Office for the Protection of the Constitution may classify the party nationwide as a suspected right-wing extremist and monitor it accordingly by the intelligence service in order to determine whether there are indeed efforts to undermine the country's free democratic basic order. In the previous instance, the domestic intelligence service had been proven right. The Cologne Administrative Court had found that there were sufficient factual indications of the party's anti-constitutional aspirations.

The AfD had lodged an appeal. Regardless of the outcome of the decision, the party will try to mobilize supporters: in the event of success, in a victory pose against what it sees as an instrumentalized Office for the Protection of the Constitution; in the event of defeat, as a supposed victim of state harassment. However, it is already clear that the times when the AfD had to fear that an official declaration as right-wing extremist would harm it are over.

June: European and local elections

June 9, the day of the European elections in Germany, will show what the mood in the country is like. If voter support for the traffic light coalition continues to shrink, the ongoing smouldering fire over the course and priorities of this government threatens to flare up again, especially between the FDP and the Greens. The FDP is already feeling increasingly uncomfortable in this alliance with dwindling voter support, but can hardly let it burst because, according to the polls, it could be thrown out of the Bundestag in the event of a new election.

June 9 will also be the first test run for Wagenknecht's new party. Can she win over so many voters from a standing start that the project is viable, or will it run out of steam just a few months after being founded? She is hoping for a double-digit result.

But the European elections are not the only indicator. On the same day, and in some cases even before, elections will be held in eight federal states, including all five eastern German states, for district councils, municipal councils and mayors. Local politicians are not responsible for migration, inflation, climate and energy, but the federal issues could have an impact - and the AfD is trying to secure further offices in the municipalities, as has already happened in isolated cases recently.

September: state elections

On September 1, Germany - rested after a summer break and beach vacation - could finally hit the political ground pretty hard. New state parliaments will be elected in Saxony and Thuringia, and on September 22 it will be Brandenburg's turn. In recent polls, the AfD was clearly ahead in all three states, in some cases with well over 30 percent. It would be the first time that the AfD has won a state election. Although polls are only snapshots and not predictions of the election outcome, the party is already publicly talking about absolute majorities and a Prime Minister Höcke in Thuringia.

With the current figures, this seems unlikely, as the formation of a government does not depend on which party has the largest parliamentary group, but on who can achieve a majority.

According to experts, however, it cannot be completely ruled out that the AfD will come to power. If it makes further gains and the SPD, Greens and FDP fail to reach the five percent threshold, it could be a close call. This possibility was at least indicated for Saxony in an Insa survey in the summer. The two remaining parties, the CDU and the Left Party, would then need more votes together to prevent the election of an AfD minister president in the state parliament. However, the effect of the planned Wagenknecht party has not yet been factored in.

However, it is also clear that forming a government with a strong AfD in the state parliament could be difficult or even impossible - as has already been the case in Thuringia, where the left-wing Minister President Bodo Ramelow, who is effectively tolerated by the CDU, remains in office even though his coalition does not have a majority. Some people are already racking their brains over such scenarios - and over unprecedented cooperation between the CDU and the Left Party: "If we are really talking about the purely fictitious situation that there are now only three parliamentary groups in Saxony's state parliament - CDU, AfD and Left Party - I believe that many members of my party will realize that the AfD should not be allowed to make any decisions here," Saxony's Left Party leader Rico Gebhardt told the "Sächsische Zeitung" newspaper in October.

Preventing an AfD prime minister together would be one thing, but then what? Who should govern and with whom if a majority can no longer be found? The CDU has ruled out government cooperation with the Left Party just as much as with the AfD.

The state elections in the east also have the potential to send shockwaves abroad. The international response is likely to be huge if a radical right-wing party becomes the strongest force in Europe's largest economy for the first time since the end of the Second World War. If the AfD wins the state elections at the expense of the traffic light parties, the question of whether this coalition is still viable will arise again in Berlin. However, the will to hold out is also likely to grow the closer the 2025 federal elections come. Especially as early elections shortly before the regular date hardly make sense.

Late summer/autumn: Union candidacy for chancellor

The most important decision of the year for the CDU/CSU will also be made around the state elections in late summer 2024. The CDU and CSU then want to answer the question of who will run for chancellor and thus who will be Chancellor Olaf Scholz's challenger in the next general election. The exact date has not yet been set. CSU leader Markus Söder would like to wait for the election in the east. However, this would link the question of whether it will be CDU leader Friedrich Merz to these election results: if Merz manages to keep his party at a stable level or even make gains, he is as good as certain to win the "K" question.

If the CDU loses noticeably in the east, it could be the turn of his rivals: Söder or the Minister Presidents of North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, Hendrik Wüst and Daniel Günther, who stand for the milder center course. The internal debate as to whether this or Merz's more hardline approach will be more popular with voters and prevent votes for the AfD has not yet been decided.

November: Trump's re-election?

The US presidential election on November 5, 2024 will be one of the most important events of the year, and not just in terms of foreign policy. If the Republican Donald Trump is re-elected president, this would also have an impact on German domestic politics and probably also on how the AfD is dealt with. The right-wingers would claim a tailwind for themselves and their argument that the counter-movement to what they call the "left-green mainstream" is gaining the upper hand everywhere in the West.

There are also speculations that US support for Ukraine could be scaled back under Trump, which would play into the hands of the Russian ruler. It is questionable whether the Europeans can and want to provide enough support for Ukraine in the long term without the USA in order to counter Putin's expansionist ambitions. This would also be in the interests of the AfD, which has argued from the outset in favor of staying out and continuing to buy cheap oil and gas from Russia.

At his summer press conference in July, Chancellor Scholz was also asked about the strength of the AfD. His answer at the time: "I am quite confident that the AfD will not perform much differently in the next federal election than in the last one." That was in the fall of 2021, when it achieved 10.3 percent. Its nationwide poll ratings are currently twice as high.