In Thuringia, a small federal state in the middle of Germany, the far right-wing party AfD is storming ahead in the polls. Thuringia was a border state within the GDR, with borders to the American and British sectors. Since reunification in 1990 it has reflected the political movements and highlighted the political turmoil in Germany.
For the first twelve and a half years after reunification, Thuringia was first governed by conservatives who focussed on converting the state into a West-German style province and building a new national identity. In 2003 a more hard-line conservative took office and austerity became the guiding principle. A woman took over, but policies were no different.
This energized the left, who reconfigured and built up the remnants of the party left-over from the GDR to create a more modern socialist/communist party (Die LINKE.pds/Die LINKE.). Whilst the more serious left did the work on the ground, the key posts were grabbed by the social-democratic wing, who ensured that any socialist policies were substituted for neoliberal austerity. Nevertheless, the party was able to maintain its aura of alternativeness, which led to it becoming the biggest faction in a government with the Social-Democrats (SPD) and the Greens. The cleansing of the party then began, with the left being mobbed out or simply having their membership cancelled. The coalition government continued and extended the hard neoliberalism policies, vigorously paying off state borrowing at the expense of children in poverty and public infrastructure like health-care, education and public transport. Die LINKE. has lost the broad basis it had in the communities and local councils – some even claim that this basis was deliberately jettisoned by the party in order to be free of any encumbrances like problems with schools and lefties who argue for left solutions. Instead, the party has targeted the conservative and the neoliberal Metronome vote.
______________________________
- Metronomes are really the modern liberal/social-democratic/greens who fully accept neoliberalism and campaign for individual rights and their truth, often lobbying through charities/NGOs about single issues. ‘Metronomes’ because they are predominately middle-class, degree-educated younger people who live in metro-poles. Due to their vociferousness, social stratum, ‘professionalism’ and physical proximity to governments, they seem to be disproportionally listened to. They do not appear to have a political philosophy other than “I and my issues are the most important in the world”, nor do they seem to generalize their condition, which often makes them appear to be extremely intolerant.
Parties like Die Linke. and the Greens seek creditability with Metronomes for their energy and publicity. Metronomes then take leading positions in such parties and become professional politicians. Consequently, the normal members of such parties are disenfranchised and the parties are hijacked to sail a different voyage.
Often it seems that the Metronomes are the loudest to shout at the far right seeking to make themselves the centre of attention and completely failing to adopt a more sociological perspective and address the social issues which have led to the return of fascism in Germany. In one sense, they are a simple reflection of the AfD with their egocentricism and ‘professional’ lobbying, representing anger rather than a social or political solution to the recurring problems for democracies. In another sense, they are the new middle class who have benefited from socialist policies like universal education, but have little political understanding other than lobbyism … perhaps the biggest failing of the left.
This has been successful only at one level , the ‘local’ federal state elections, but the party’s vote at the local, national and European elections has nosedived.
This has exasperated the general frustration and no doubt fostered selfishness and intolerance. Many voters felt used, abused, left out, and cheated. They felt tricked not only by the West, the conservatives and also Die LINKE. who also played a significant role, and frustration is being replaced by anger. This has presented a wonderful opportunity for the newly-formed AfD, who continue to capitalise on an increasing feeling of being made to feel unimportant and worthless.
In the ten years since its foundation, the AfD has built itself up from a capitalist ‘anti-European Central Bank’ party funded by a few medium-sized businesses who were threatened by international capitalism, to a party who is second in the opinion polls for the national parliament and leads the polls in five of the six federal states in the former East/GDR. It even competes with the established parties for first place at the next European election in 2024.
2. In Thuringia the AfD is currently predicated to get more than a third of the votes at the federal-state election next year (2024) and win at least 30 of the 44 direct seats. In Thuringia the Federal-state parliament is composed of at least 88 seats, and people get two votes (constituency and list). The first 44 are for the directly elected MPs, the rest are distributed proportionally so that the proportion of all the MPs reflect the list vote. If parties get less direct MPs than their proportion of the list vote, more seats are added to the parliament (‘overhang’ seats).
If a candidate wins a direct seat but is not on their party’s list they get priority and enter the house, the candidate on the bottom of the party’s list is ‘knocked-off’ (does not come into the parliament). For a party’s list to be considered, they need more than 5% of the vote. Therefore, the vote for the parties with more than 5% of the votes is positively weighted.
Thuringia currently has 90 MPs and the next election will be in the autumn 2024. But with ‘only’ 33% and 27 direct seats, they will have at least 32 MPs, thirteen more than they currently have and will be the largest party.
3. The FDP are predicted to fall below the 5% hurdle and fall out of the parliament. Consequently, the list vote for the AfD will be worth more than 33%.] It is generally considered that they will get more than this, but the basic majority of MPs of 44 needed to form a government alone is not so far off (without overhang MPs).