Things are falling apart in Germany, and the centre no longer holds. 

This has become abundantly clear in the country’s latest round of regional elections in September 2026 , which saw voters heading to the polls in three Länder. In East Germany, the far-right AfD celebrated unprecedented victories, winning a staggering 43.8 percent in Saxony-Anhalt and 38.2 percent in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. 

There is a realistic chance that the AfD will field the next state premier in Saxony-Anhalt, which would make it the first time a far-right party governs a German state since the end of the Second World War. 

But in a rare moment of hope for democratic socialists, Die Linke emerged as a winner in the third election of the day, held in the capital of Berlin. Die Linke had campaigned on cost of living more generally, and the rising cost of rent in particular, and doubled its vote share, securing 25.7 percent of the vote, the highest share Die Linke has won in Berlin’s post-reunification history.

The results are widely regarded as a vote of non-confidence for the country’s governing coalition under chancellor Friedrich Merz. Made up of Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the social democratic SPD, the “grand coalition” had taken office in early 2025 promising to boost Germany’s faltering economy. But so far Merz has been unable to address the country’s deep structural crisis. 

Austerity and Economic Crisis in Germany

Germany’s traditionally strong high-tech manufacturing sector is facing intense pressure from Chinese competitors, sometimes called the “China Shock 2.0.” At the same time, an energy crisis fueled by the US-Israeli war against Iran has sent prices skyrocketing. 

Merz’s own approval rating has plummeted, making the former BlackRock executive the most unpopular chancellor in post-war German history. Eight out of ten Germans are critical of his insensitive communication style, including a series of racist remarks. Calling on the population to work harder and tighten the belt to improve the country’s economic situation also did not go down well with German voters. 

Chancellor Merz faces significant backlash over his far-reaching healthcare, labor market, and pension reform plans, which are widely seen as dismantling the German welfare state. 

The chancellor also faces significant backlash over his far-reaching healthcare, labor market, and pension reform plans, which are widely seen as dismantling the German welfare state. 

The consequences of these austerity measures will be felt particularly harshly in Germany’s eastern states, where wages and average household wealth still remain far below West German standards. 

In part, the reforms are intended to finance a massive increase in military spending. In 2025 Merz had vowed to turn Germany’s Bundeswehr into “the strongest conventional army in Europe” and signaled support for the reintroduction of conscription, sparking mass protests and raising suspicions among European neighbors.

The AfD’s Landslide in the East

Capitalising most effectively on the growing wave of public discontent, the far-right AfD has surged in federal polls. The latest data shows it comfortably in the lead at 29 percent, with the ruling CDU coming in second at just 20 percent. 

The AfD’s landslide victories in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania further cement its status as the dominant anti-establishment party in East Germany and beyond, a position once held by Die Linke and its predecessor PDS. 

The AfD’s prospects for gaining power are somewhat diminished by the fact that all major parties refuse to collaborate or form governments with it, and continue to uphold a cordon sanitaire or what is referred to as a firewall (Brandmauer) in Germany. Nevertheless, the federal government’s current political course appears to only further strengthen the far right.

Elif Eralp’s Campaign on Housing and Cost of Living

Die Linke’s first ever plurality win in Berlin state elections is a welcome antidote to the AfD’s recent successes. 

At the core of Die Linke’s campaign in the capital was the Zohran Mamdani-inspired pledge to “make Berlin affordable” and to tackle rising rents. It promised to expropriate and socialise large profit-oriented housing corporations, which own much of the city’s housing stock – a move that a majority of the Berlin electorate had already approved in a 2021 referendum, but which had been obstructed by previous governments. 

Other campaign demands included cracking down on rent gouging, instituting a municipal rent cap, opening publicly funded and affordable neighborhood canteens (Kiezkantinen), and increased state funding for street cleaning. 

Die Linke was able to draw upon the city’s vibrant social movement landscape by incorporating popular demands from the city’s strong housing, climate justice, anti-racist, anti-war and Palestinian solidarity movements.

The campaign was helmed by mayoral candidate Elif Eralp, a migration and human rights lawyer and daughter of Turkish socialist parents who fled the country after the 1980 military coup. Eralp’s candidacy reflects the overall demographic changes in the party, whose membership has doubled in recent years, making the party younger, more female, more ethnically diverse, and more West German on average.

The influx of new members also allowed the party to run an extensive election campaign, relying on a tried and tested combination of social media marketing and an intensive city-wide door-to-door canvassing campaign with party members knocking on 250 000 doors across all districts. 

Die Linke was also able to draw upon the city’s vibrant social movement landscape by incorporating popular demands from the city’s strong housing, climate justice, anti-racist, anti-war, and Palestinian solidarity movements.

Die Linke’s focus on bread-and-butter issues earned it significant approval from working-class electorates and young voters. The party fared best among voters rating their own situation as “financially poor”, ahead of the AfD. Among 16-24 year-olds, the party won an impressive 46 percent, with social media users comparing the party’s youth vote bar to an outstretched middle finger. 

In urban multiracial working-class districts such as northern Neukölln and Wedding, where the party ran unapologetic socialist and internationalist campaigns, it was able to win more than 50 percent of the vote, despite several candidates facing intense media scrutiny throughout the election period. The party was labelled “unfit to govern” for its socialisation plans, and repeatedly branded as “antisemitic” for its stance on Palestine, being the first major German party to condemn the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Whether Die Linke will be able to make good on its promises in Berlin will now depend on negotiations with potential coalition partners in the Green Party and the SPD.

Whether Die Linke will be able to make good on its promises in Berlin will now depend on negotiations with potential coalition partners in the Green Party and the SPD. On 25 September, a special party congress will decide whether the party will enter negotiations to form a government under Elif Eralp as the new mayor, a move most likely supported by a majority of the party’s membership. 

Nonetheless, a vocal minority in the party remains critical of participating in government and cautions against repeating what they see as past mistakes – the party had previously joined several SPD-led governments as a junior partner and found itself backing welfare cuts and the privatisation of publicly owned property. 

A key issue in any future negotiation will be the implementation of the housing referendum: While the Green Party has affirmed its support for the socialisation of large housing corporations, the SPD’s leadership firmly rejects the policy. Resistance will also come from the federal government, with Merz announcing a controversial initiative to ban the expropriation of housing corporations following Die Linke’s win on Sunday.

An Ulrich Siegmund Government in Saxony-Anhalt?

While Die Linke’s electoral success in Berlin provides a glimmer of hope, the AfD’s victories in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania – both former socialist strongholds – paint a bleaker picture. 

Across rural East Germany, the anti-establishment vote is now overwhelmingly captured by the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Founded in 2013 during the financial crisis and built on a coalition of disgruntled conservatives, free-market neoliberals, and old school neo-Nazi cadres, the party has successfully broadened its appeal and now reaches voters across all constituencies. Its platform is centred on the call for ICE-style mass deportations, a pro-fossil-fuel energy policy intended to address rising fuel prices, as well as a foreign policy critical of military support for Ukraine and in favour of closer ties with Russia, a demand particularly popular in East Germany.

Across rural East Germany, the anti-establishment vote is now overwhelmingly captured by the far right Alternative for Germany.

The sheer scale of the AfD’s electoral support became apparent in Saxony-Anhalt, where Merz’s CDU had been in power for a consecutive twenty-four years. The CDU’s vote share plummeted from 37.1 to just 17.7 percent, while the AfD celebrated an unprecedented victory, taking 43.8 percent of the vote. The party’s lead candidate, perpetually beaming 35-year-old Ulrich Siegmund, made no secret of his neo-Nazi ties, which include the four members of a banned organization modeled on the Hitler youth on his team, and Siegmund’s open admission that he participated in a controversial far-right “reimigration” conference in 2023. 

When German magazine Der Spiegel labeled Siegmund “Germany’s most dangerous man” on their cover, the AfD embraced the label and turned into a campaign asset. 

Falling just three seats shy of an absolute majority in the state parliament, Siegmund would now have to rely on the support of at least one other party to be able to govern. So far only the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a left-conservative offshoot led by former Die Linke politician Sahra Wagenknecht, has declared interest in working with the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, although its leaders have made clear that collaboration would be limited to specific issues and that the BSW would not join an AfD-led coalition government. 

Meanwhile, several prominent politicians in Berlin are openly considering invoking Bundeszwang (federal coercion) against a potential AfD minister-president in Saxony-Anhalt. This refers to article 37 of Germany’s Basic Law, which allows the federal government to force a state government to obey federal law. However, the article has never been used before, and its activation would almost certainly trigger a constitutional crisis.

The CDU Obliterated in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the AfD tripled its previous result and surged to 38.2 percent. It all but obliterated the CDU, which fell below the 5 percent threshold and was ejected from a German parliament for the first time in its 77-year post-war history. 

Unlike in Saxony-Anhalt, however, the AfD was significantly challenged by the SPD, which came in a close second at 35.5 percent of the vote. This is largely due to the popularity of sitting social democratic state premier Manuela Schwesig. 

Schwesig campaigned on a cost-of-living platform, calling for a fuel price cap and explicitly distancing herself from the reforms pursued by chancellor Merz and her own party at the national level.

Lessons for the Left

In both Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Die Linke suffered major losses. While the party once consistently won above 20 percent of the vote in both states, in September’s elections it only secured a meagre 6.5 percent in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and 8.6 percent in Saxony-Anhalt, its worst-ever results. This was largely due to so-called “tactical voting”, whereby the party’s voters cast their ballots for other parties at risk of falling below the 5 percent threshold (including the Greens and the SPD) in an attempt to reduce the AfD’s number of seats in parliament. 

More worryingly, it shows that Die Linke was unable to sharpen its oppositional profile and develop a platform that appeals to rural voters. While the party’s affordability agenda focused on combating rising rents in urban areas delivered wins in larger cities, Die Linke wasn’t able to appeal to voters in the periphery. 

Both Die Linke’s impressive victory in Berlin as well as the heavy losses the party suffered in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania hold valuable lessons for socialist strategy in the face of rising fascism.

Developing a comprehensive socialist political project for both city and countryside becomes all the more important as the liberal establishment in Germany remains caught in disbelief over the rise of the AfD and unable to address its structural drivers. 

The success of the campaign in Berlin shows that a clear and consistent focus on urban affordability can generate huge electoral successes in urban centres. 

The influx of new young members  has established Die Linke as the dominant force in inner-city districts in cities such as Berlin. The party also made significant gains in East German cities such as Magdeburg, Halle, and Rostock, where it fielded young candidates with working-class and migrant backgrounds and ran large-scale door-knocking campaigns.

At the same time, Die Linke’s old strongholds have increasingly been taken over by the AfD. This is the case in the East German countryside, but also applies to districts such as Marzahn-Hellersdorf in Berlin’s far east, a former socialist bastion that now overwhelmingly votes AfD. 

Die Linke’s current platform centred on urban affordability exerts less appeal here, and the strategic focus on resource-intensive door-knocking falls flat in geographically dispersed areas with a lower member base. 

A left whose main rhetorical focus is on preventing an AfD government, rather than developing a distinct political platform for rural and suburban affordability, will find it hard to challenge the far right in these communities.

Developing a comprehensive socialist political project for both city and countryside becomes all the more important as the liberal establishment in Germany remains caught in disbelief over the rise of the AfD and unable to address its structural drivers. 

Germany After Merz?

Following the CDU’s devastating election losses, there is open speculation that Merz could be ousted by his own party. Perhaps he will remain in office to push through his reforms before stepping down. The SPD would be digging its own grave if it went along with these plans, but Manuela Schwesig’s success in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has strengthened critical voices in the party. 

In the streets discontent is brewing as well. On 26 September, union members across the country are planning mass protests against Merz’s planned reforms. 

Will Merz resign? And what will come after Merz? Nobody knows. 

But in the medium term, the choice once again appears to be between socialism and barbarism.

---

---