Monash University Media Release
Germany has lurched to the right with conservative parties, led by opposition leader Friedrich Merz, winning the most support in national elections, while the Alternative for Germany nearly doubled its support to finish second, the most support for a far-right party since World War Two.
Ben Wellings, Associate Professor, Politics & International Relations, Faculty of Arts says:
“There are some important trends from the German election that Australian parties might note ahead of the upcoming federal election in Australia.
“Centre-right: the CDU-CSU has come out on top of the polls with an estimated 29 per cent of the vote. While this puts these conservative parties in pole position to form a coalition government, it is another decline in vote share for a centrist party.
“Centre-left: The big loser on the night was the governing centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). This suggests that centre-left parties acting as managers of the economy do not appeal to voters who seem to crave some sort of change. The former coalition partners the Greens and the neoliberal Free Democratic Party lost votes and seats suggesting that a red-green coalition seems to have weak electoral appeal, and unadulterated neo-liberalism appeals to only a small minority.
“The far-right: the big winner on the night was the far-right Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD). It doubled its vote share from 10 to 20 per cent. Although the CDU has said that it won’t form a coalition with the AfD given memories of how the Nazis captured conservative politicians between 1928-33 and seized power, it will be difficult to ignore the second-placed AfD when formulating some sort of policy response to immigration and Ukraine. The AfD was endorsed by Elon Musk and J.D Vance during the election campaign, so second place is another advance for radical-right and far-right politics across liberal democracies.
“Youth vote: Although we won’t know this for a while, it will be interesting to see how young people – and young men in particular – voted for the far-right as happened in France, and in the US with young men’s support for Donald Trump.
“International relations: The CDU’s Friedrich Merz will be the next Chancellor in some sort of coalition government which is yet to be negotiated. Merz will probably be more present in the EU councils and is more pro-Ukraine than his predecessor –and Trump. Merz will be part of the emerging European response to the effective end of the post-WWII western alliance signalled by Vance during the German election campaign. For Australia, the US concessions to Russia might signal a clearing of the decks for a confrontation with China.’’
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It seems worse than ever in my time, when we “celebrated” the seeing off of Hitler, Mussolini, the cornering of Franco, the outweaponing of Stalin, the humiliation and destruction of Japan. Australia slowly went up a civilised notch with some wider immigration, some improved culture, some relative prosperity. It seems far back, as today’s world has imperious aggressive anuses, boofheads, threats, egofixated fools all thriving. The shittiest fantasy Hollywoody crap could not have imagined a Trump or Musk run USA, politically and socially shitcoated, with the voters in enough support. So, my time will end soon in a declining outlook, a shittier shittiness than a nightmare. Well, the boofhead arseholes killed Socrates and Jesus, and ran off Gautama and Mohammed…but, they did eliminate some foul nobility and royalty…
Not an unexpected outcome and AfD will be bypassed; unlike too many conservatives (inc Anglosphere) of right and left, Merz is no friend of Russia nor Trump.
On the latter Germany, France, UK, Poland* etc. have been compelled to quickly deal with the USA’s threats on NATO and new ally Russia.
Germany will be central due to the size of its economy and armaments sector (and maybe breaking their debt ceiling); while Poland has been on a massive rearming especially South Korean sourced and could probably deal with a Russian land attack alone.
On the ‘youth vote’, like elsewhere and regarding the AfD, there’s much chatter, but little voter public and deep demographic analysis*; they may have impact in regions along with far more middle aged and older, but marginal in urban areas.
Historically AfD has been strongest in former Eastern Germany which lost women, industry and working age; assumes like Reform most AfD are the heaving mass of mostly male, middle aged and older with lower levels of education and are targeted (by AfD and Russsia).