Germans will head to the polls Sunday looking for leadership at a deeply uncertain time, but all eyes will be trained on a party likely to finish a distant second.
As center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz struggles to keep his post, the bigger question is how the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) will fare. The AfD has used the searing immigration question to surge up the polls in recent months.
The AfD is highly unlikely to win, and the country’s mainstream left and right parties say they will refuse to work with it in a coalition government. Still, it will likely score the best result since World War II for a deeply conservative party and gain a new level of political legitimacy.
That prospect sends shivers through the European establishment because of many AfD members’ neo-Nazi sympathies, as well as platform planks that include a hard line on immigration, skepticism about the European Union and support for better relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Critics say the party is still trying to break free from Germany’s dark Nazi past.
The party has gained support from key Trump administration figures, who say the shunning of the AfD is a prime example of how establishment parties and institutions across Europe have tried to censor conservative and populist voices that challenge the dominant liberal internationalist ideology.
Vice President J.D. Vance broke with protocol after the recent Munich Security Conference this month to meet in person with AfD party leader Alice Weidel while skipping a courtesy visit with Mr. Scholz.
Billionaire mogul Elon Musk, who has President Trump’s ear and a major Tesla car factory on the outskirts of Berlin, held a glowing 75-minute social media interview with Ms. Weidel in January. He urged Germans to “move beyond” guilt from their Nazi past and consider supporting her.
“Only the AfD can save Germany,” Mr. Musk declared on his X social media platform last month.
Ms. Weidel, who has proved a formidable campaigner, returned the compliment by borrowing Mr. Trump’s signature line and calling for supporters to “make Germany great again.”
She rejects claims the party still harbors neo-Nazi ideals and cites the AfD’s growing presence in all parts of the country.
“You can insult me here tonight as much you like,” she told her rivals at a spirited candidates debate this week, but “you are insulting millions of voters.”
Second place
Polls predict the AfD will finish second behind the mainstream conservative coalition, which includes the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union, but ahead of the center-left Social Democratic Party headed by Mr. Scholz.
Other socially left-leaning parties — the Greens, the German Left Party, and the Reason and Justice Alliance — may garner enough votes to earn seats in the 630-seat Bundestag, Germany’s parliament.
Mr. Merz has said he hopes to form a new government by mid-April if he wins. The current government will remain on a caretaker basis until a new chancellor is elected.
After the votes are counted Sunday, the focus will likely be on how strong AfD finishes in second place and what happens if, as expected, it emerges as the country’s largest single opposition party in the federal parliament.
Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU/CSU alliance and the man many expect to be the next chancellor, has repeatedly rejected the idea of forming a ruling alliance with Ms. Weidel and the AfD. He has said he would rather reach across the aisle to work with the Social Democrats, the party headed by Mr. Scholz, or the environmentalist Greens.
“I want to ensure that we have at least two options and only need one,” Mr. Merz said in a debate a week before the vote. “Possibly [a coalition with] the Social Democrats, possibly the Greens.”
Mr. Merz succinctly addressed a potential alliance between Ms. Weidel and her allies. “That,” he said, “is simply not an option.”
The predicted rejection of Mr. Scholz’s government adds to an anti-incumbency trend in Europe, the U.S. and beyond, adding unfamiliar instability to Europe’s largest economy and what had been among the most reliable and stable members of the European Union for decades.
Before Mr. Scholz took power three years ago, heading a three-party center-left coalition, conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel had been in power for 16 years and emerged as Europe’s de facto leader. This role has remained noticeably vacant since her departure.
Ms. Merkel’s fateful decision in 2015 to open Germany’s borders to large numbers of refugees, mainly from Syria and Afghanistan, fueled the counterreaction that has boosted the AfD. The number of Muslims in Germany has nearly doubled since 2010 to around 6.5% of the population, and a series of violent events involving migrants have kept the issue on full boil for German voters in recent months.
Many Germans now appear ready to abandon the Social Democrats and CDU/CSU, the traditional powers in German politics, amid slow economic growth and higher energy prices sparked by the war in Ukraine.
“Circumstances in Germany have become very challenging, and the government and Merz have made political missteps that have hurt their own case,” said German Marshall Fund Senior Fellow Jackson Janes. He cited a hasty proposal to tighten border controls after an asylum-seeker killed a child and an adult with a knife.
The move caused a rift in Mr. Merz’s coalition. Some saw it as a clumsy effort to siphon AfD support.
Neither the Social Democrats nor the Greens have formally endorsed collaborating with Mr. Merz, who has been a target of criticism from both parties. It is far from clear that Mr. Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance could cobble together a majority in the Bundestag by working with just one of the two rival parties.
Everything could change if AfD finishes strongly. If the party garners more than a quarter of the vote, Mr. Merz would fall short of a majority even if he negotiates the support of the Social Democrats and the Greens.
That could force him to consider alternatives and allow AfD to emerge as an emboldened opposition force, with at least tacit support from Washington.
That scenario would make governing extraordinarily difficult for Mr. Merz.
Endre Borbath of the Political Science Institute at Heidelberg’s Ruprecht Karls University said the endgame for AfD is not to have a role in the government this time but rather to “normalize” views of the party. Comments from Mr. Vance and Mr. Musk can help enormously.
“We are probably seeing a kind of deliberate strategy from AdF in the sense that they can test out the political climate, the cultural climate, and take a big step toward being seen as a normal political party,” Mr. Borbath said in an interview. “That would be a kind of victory.”