State election: Shift to the right and ungovernable? – What is possible in Thuringia

Top candidates shouting at each other during joint appearances, angry people on the streets and the shock after the attack in Solingen: Before election Sunday in Thuringia, the mood is heated, the country seems polarized, and the nervousness of the campaigners increases with each new poll. There is already talk of a fateful election that could fundamentally change the political situation in the small Free State of 2.1 million people – with coalitions never seen before or even ungovernability. And this one year before the federal election.

Polls predict shift to the right

In current polls, the AfD, with its right-wing extremist Björn Höcke, is fairly stable at between 29 and 30 percent, well ahead of the other parties. With a good third of the seats in the state parliament, it could not only block the election of judges. The fact that none of the other parties want to work with the AfD means that they cannot form a coalition, but this does not bother Höcke. “We want to govern,” says the 52-year-old, who was sentenced to two fines in the first instance a few weeks ago for using a Nazi slogan.

After the suspected Islamist knife attack at a city festival in Solingen that left three people dead, the AfD tried to use the issue for its election campaign. Höcke shared a tile on X with a bloody knife and a call to vote, and the hashtag “Höcke or Solingen” is also circulating online. According to the latest ZDF “Politbarometer,” however, this did not help the party gain 29 percent.

In the week before the election, Höcke faced a lot of opposition from the business world after he attacked a company initiative for diversity and tolerance during a campaign appearance. He described the “Made in Germany – Made by Diversity” campaign by family businesses as hypocrisy. And his statement “I hope that these companies will experience serious, serious economic turbulence” drew massive criticism across the country. The President of the German Retail Association (HDE), Alexander von Preen, declared that “with Björn Höcke, one of the leading figures of the AfD has once again unmasked himself.”

Höcke has left it open how he wants to govern. He simply says that there should not be a firewall in a democracy. But CDU leader Friedrich Merz raised it again at an election campaign appearance with CDU top candidate Mario Voigt in Erfurt. Höcke’s AfD regional association has been classified as definitely right-wing extremist by the state’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution since 2021.

Change of government inevitable

According to the polls, the red-red-green minority coalition of the still popular Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Left Party) seems to have no chance. The Left Party is at 13 to 14 percent, the SPD at six to seven percent, and the Greens would be out of the state parliament with three to four percent. This means that a change of government in Erfurt is imminent. But Ramelow says he is far from giving up.

The 68-year-old’s credo: “I want to do my part to ensure that the AfD is not put in a position to blackmail parliament.” Ramelow, who, as always, tours Thuringia every day, keeps the door open to other parties. And of course he would answer the phone if Voigt or Sahra Wagenknecht called him after September 1st.

Completely new coalition model possible

According to the polls, there are not many options for government. In purely mathematical terms, this could result in an unprecedented model. CDU top candidate Voigt would have to flirt with the ex-Left Party and former mayor of Eisenach, Katja Wolf, from the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) alliance and bring SPD leader and Interior Minister Georg Maier into the rather experimental alliance. Wolf, who only switched to the BSW a few months ago, could thus become something of a wild card after the election.

According to the polls, the CDU, which is pushing its way back into the state chancellery after ten years in opposition, is getting 21 to 23 percent, while the BSW, which was only founded at the beginning of the year, is getting 17 to 20 percent. “It will be an incredibly close affair,” Voigt suspects. He rejects cooperation with Ramelow’s Left Party. BSW federal leader Wagenknecht, who is actively involved in the state election campaign and smiles from many posters and was splashed with red paint at an appearance in Erfurt, has put up hurdles.

The issue is the demand that Thuringia must oppose the deployment of missiles by the USA and move away from Germany’s previous policy on Ukraine. Experts expect that an agreement could be reached on the issue, especially since it will not be decided at the state level anyway. But there are also fears that Wagenknecht and her party do not want to be part of a state government yet – so that they can enter the federal election campaign unscathed.

Wagenknecht at the negotiating table

Erfurt political scientist André Brodocz sees the BSW as more willing to be part of a government, but would not rule out a model in which the BSW might only tolerate a minority government. It also depends on whether the new BSW faction “develops its own independence”.

Wagenknecht wants to sit at the negotiating table in possible coalition negotiations in Saxony or Thuringia and also get involved herself, as she emphasized in several interviews.

Voigt, who only has the option of governing with the BSW, is in a dilemma. As long as Wagenknecht tries to “govern purely” from the outside, he has a problem, says Voigt. If in doubt, he will sit down with Wolf. “But the people of Thuringia decide their own questions.” In any case, a liaison between the CDU, BSW and SPD is considered tricky. Wagenknecht was once a member of the SED and later was considered an icon of the communist platform in the Left. “There are certainly CDU people who don’t like that,” says Brodocz.

The formation of a government in Thuringia would be very close if the 48-year-old Wolf and the BSW were to overtake the CDU – which is not what the latest polls suggest. Politically, Brodocz believes that this would be an “incredible shift in weight”. When asked about a female Prime Minister, Voigt said: “I don’t think that would work.”