The CDU's 'AfD problem': too big to ignore, too controversial to team up with

Yesterday’s regional elections in Saxony saw Germany's anti-euro Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) score an impressive 9.7%  netting the party its first ever seats in one of Germany’s regional parliaments. The lead candidate of the Green party, Antje Hermenau, described the AfD result as an “earthquake” while AfD leader Bernd Lucke celebrated that they “finally arrived on the German party landscape.”

It is now up to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party to find a new coalition partner after Saxony's FDP followed the national party in losing all its seats. The CDU's lead candidate and current Prime Minister of Saxony, Stanislaw Tillich, categorically excluded a potential coalition with the AfD describing it as a protest party that due to its inner turmoil was completely unfit to govern. He only waited until after the election result was announced to make this statement however, following a debate within the CDU which continues.

Commenting on the prospects for a CDU-AfD coalition, Bild columnist Bela Anda writes that if it were to enter into a coalition with the AfD,

“The CDU would saw off the branch on which it itself is sitting." 

A CDU-SPD grand coalition is therefore the most likely option although a CDU-Green coalition could also be on the cards.

So is the AfD 'Gekommen um zu bleiben' (here to stay)?

This is not only the title of a famous German pop song but now the question everyone is asking themselves. Regional elections in Thüringen and Brandenburg are coming up in two weeks and the AfD has a good chance of enter both regional parliaments. However, the party's objective remains winning Bundestag seats in 2017 having narrowly missed the 5% threshold in 2013. There will be another eleven regional elections before 2017 and the challenge for the party will be to keep the momentum going. The AfD leadership will no doubt remember the fate of the Pirate party in 2011 - polled at a spectacular 13% before plummeting into virtual non-existence.

In Saxony a large share of AfD vote came from ‘Sonstige’ (other parties) and ‘Nichtwähler’ (non-voters) which is typical for protest parties. But at the same time there is a considerable spread across most mainstream parties with the largest share coming from the CDU (34,000 votes).

This would be a particular headache for Angela Merkel’s party. The worst case scenario for Merkel is that the AfD becomes to the CDU what Die Linke is to the SPD - and indeed, some would say, UKIP to the Tories in Britain: too big to ignore, too controversial to team up with. This headache will become particularly severe if the liberal FDP's decline is irreversible, dooming the CDU to always have to look to the SDP (or the Greens), in turn making left-right coalitions more or less a permanent feature of German politics.

Headlines are all for AfD and UKIP, but the biggest shocker for traditional parties may come from Spain...

The surge of anti-EU, anti-euro and protest parties across Europe continues. Germany's anti-euro Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is making headlines after winning 9.7% of votes in yesterday's regional elections in Saxony and securing its first ever seats in one of the country's regional parliaments.

In the UK, a Survation poll for the Mail on Sunday found that, following the defection of Douglas Carswell from the Conservatives to UKIP last week, UKIP is set to win the ensuing Clacton by-election with 64% of the vote - which would grant Nigel Farage's party its first elected MP.

However, the biggest shocker for mainstream parties seems to be coming from Spain. According to a new Sigma Dos poll for El Mundo, the anti-establishment (but not anti-EU) party Podemos would finish third in a general election with 21.2% of votes - only 1.1% less than the opposition Socialist Party. Being neck-and-neck with one of Spain's two traditional parties is an absolutely extraordinary result for Podemos, given that it was founded in March. The poll puts Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's centre-right Partido Popular in the lead on 30.1% - a 14.5% fall from the 44.6% the party scored at the November 2011 general election (click on the picture to enlarge).

 
If you didn't read it at the time, here is a portrait of Podemos and its leader, Pablo Iglesias, that we published in the aftermath of the European Parliament elections in May - when Podemos came from nowhere to win five seats in Strasbourg. We noted:

Call it left-wing, anti-establishment, anti-austerity (but clearly not anti-EU), the rise of Podemos is significant because - similar to what the Five-Star Movement has done in Italy - it can give Spaniards a channel through which they can voice their dissatisfaction with the political establishment (and the current eurozone economic policies), something which has been lacking at the peak of the eurozone crisis.

Indeed, looking at the latest polls, Podemos seems to be following exactly the same trajectory as Beppe Grillo's Five-Star Movement in terms of rocketing (potential) electoral support. And exactly as in Italy, the rise of a strong anti-establishment party may well force the centre-right Partido Popular and the Socialists to consider an unusual (and uncomfortable) 'grand coalition' if none of the two big traditional parties wins a majority in the next general election - due in November 2015.

While the speed of the rise of Podemos is certainly surprising, there has undoubtedly been a huge gap in the market for a protest party in Spain over the past few years - as we noted on this blog at the end of May. Despite sky-high unemployment, a struggling economy, a few political scandals and regional discontent, no party or movement had so far managed to shake the solid support for the two mainstream parties. But since Podemos entered stage, things seems to have changed. With a Catalan independence referendum potentially coming up in November and thoughts turning towards next year's general election, these are certainly interesting times in Spanish politics.