Can the Eastern German Center Hold?
The center managed to keep the far right at bay in most of eastern Germany’s recent state elections, but the victory may be short-lived.
In the run-up to a string of September elections in eastern Germany, the outlook was bleak. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) was leading the polls in Thuringia, Saxony, and Brandenburg, while the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), and the left-wing Die Linke were floundering. Yet only Thuringia’s election resulted in a victory for the AfD, which unseated a Linke government and became the first far-right party since the Nazis to win a state election; the CDU and the SPD managed to eke out narrow wins in the other two contests.
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