WHILE attention is focused on the rise of the right-wing populist Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) — and liberal opinion in Britain anxiously parses the difference and similarities of this peculiarly German formation with our own home grown Reform UK — the collapse of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) is the issue exercising Labour MPs.

In the German election the big winner in terms of voter gains is the AfD — with 20.8 per cent it almost doubled its number of voters — while the conservative Christian Democrat/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) increased its vote by 4.4 per cent to total 28.6 per cent. This makes its aggressively right-wing leader Friedrich Merz almost certain to replace the SPD’s Olaf Scholz as chancellor.

The SPD clocked up its worst result in a federal election and its largest loss, eventually winning a humiliating 16.4 per cent.

The extravagantly big business-orientated neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), whose withdrawal from the ruling “traffic-light” coalition triggered the snap election, crashed out of the Bundestag after winning just 4.33 per cent and failing to meet the 5 per cent threshold.

Similarly Bundnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) lost its parliamentary presence, failing by just 0.3 per cent to reach the 5 per cent bar. A total of 4.6 per cent of votes were cast to other smaller parties which means — with the FDP and BSW votes discounted — one in eight Germans will have no parliamentary expression of their political choices.

Thus Merz’s goal of forming a coalition is less complicated.

Of course, the rationale for the 5 per cent threshold was always the “necessity” to keep the political extremes at bay and allow a centre ground consensus to monopolise political power.

In summary, the conservative CDU/CSU is first with smallish gains, the AfD doubled its vote, all the “traffic-light” coalition parties lost substantial numbers of votes while Die Linke (The Left) came back from near extinction. Overall voter participation was up signifying the deepening crisis and sharper political conflicts around the war and migration, austerity and defence spending.

Whilst the CDU/CSU triumphed their vote was below their target of 30 per cent and below expectations.

The big beneficiary is the AfD which is now the biggest party in the Lander (states) of the former socialist Germany but which nevertheless polled somewhat below its expectations.

Die Linke emerged substantially strengthened at national level, with 8.7 per cent, benefiting from voters, especially young voters, defecting from both the Greens and the SPD, a development presaged by a growth spurt in new members over the recent period. 

Just a few months ago opinion polls put Die Linke below 3 per cent. In the event it became the biggest party in Berlin, with 19.9 per cent of the votes, ahead of the CDU on 18.3 per cent and the Greens on 16.8 per cent.

Before its recent recovery, Die Linke rested its hopes in retaining a Bundestag presence on winning a plurality in at least three constituencies. Under federal election rules three such wins allow votes nationwide to be included in calculating seat numbers.

In the East the former Thuringia state prime minister Bodo Ramelow won an Erfurt constituency, and Soren Pellmann won in Leipzig. Ines Schwerdtner won in Berlin-Lichtenberg, Gregor Gysi in Treptow-Kopenick, Pascal Meiser in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and Ferat Kocak in Neukolln. Particularly striking was the win in Berlin Neukolln, the first outright win in a “western constituency.”

Die Linke lost votes in the East and improved its vote in Western Lander, taking votes most particularly in university cities and from the Greens. On the surface this means Die Linke’s vote is more homogeneous nationally but the underlying trend was for the party to grow among young voters, especially in university towns at the expense of the Greens and to an extent the SPD, but to lose or mark time among workers, particularly in rural areas in the East.

For the unemployed and among German voters who define themselves as workers, the AfD has presently between 30 and 40 per cent support. Die Linke and the AfD have the largest proportion of young voters.

In the context of an overall weakening of the parties of the “traffic-light” coalition (SPD red, Greens and FDP yellow) the collapse of support for the SPD is the penalty for its failure to represent distinctive working-class interests. The deepening nature of the economic and political crisis of capitalism and its particular manifestation in a failing Europe (and an increasingly disunited and fractious EU) expresses itself as the deep erosion of the so-called centre ground. Politics in Germany is increasingly polarised.

The direct expression of this is the stark distinction between East and West Germany, with the AfD the leading party in the former GDR and the CDU/CSU leading in the West. 

For Bundnis Sahra Wagenknecht the results are a shock if not a surprise. Sahra Wagenknecht has moved from being the most popular individual politician in Germany and parliamentary leader of Die Linke to losing her seat in the Bundestag and the deputies who left Die Linke with her are out of parliament.

When it was formed BSW rapidly outpaced Die Linke, especially in the East where it polled very well in three Lander elections on the basis of its strong anti-war position in which it defined itself against Die Linke’s passivity and backpedalling over German support for Nato’s proxy war in Ukraine.

Particularly in East Germany opposition to the war transcends party boundaries and the AfD itself takes an anomalous anti-war position despite strong support for rearmament and increased defence spending.

Where BSW distinguished itself from Die Linke was more generally in foreign policy where it was the only parliamentary party that combined anti-austerity policies with opposition to the war and solidarity with Palestine. In a political climate where this made it a pariah in the media and among the political class it failed to capitalise on its earlier spectacular performance in regional elections in the East.

Die Linke, in particular, harbours a significant tendency, especially at leadership level, that tolerates and justifies Israel’s actions. 

Some of these elements have left and Die Linke campaigned strongly on austerity and social questions and has been prominent in anti-fascist demonstrations. But even these were problematic, being to a significant extent cross-party state-sponsored events designed to isolate the AfD, and are easily accommodated alongside state repression of Palestinian solidarity and anti-war protests.

BSW is highly critical of the federal republic’s actual immigration policy, especially under former chancellor Angela Merkel which reflected the German ruling-class policy of drawing in refugees from the various Middle East conflicts, particularly skilled workers and professionals, to meet the demands of the economy which the state was unable to meet. (There are more than 5,000 Syrian doctors in Germany).

Merz has ramped up anti-immigrant rhetoric in order to siphon off AfD support. When Merkel was chancellor Merz was highly critical of her immigration policy. One expression of the changed climate is the victory of a young AfD candidate in her old constituency.

Merz’s performative politics on migration mirrors the hypocrisy of mainstream British politicians who make a song and dance about the relatively small numbers of refugees crossing the Channel in small boats, but keep schtum about the large-scale inflow of migrant workers who arrive with government approval in direct response to the demands of employers.

A CDU/CSU-led “grand coalition” with the SPD the very junior partner — increasingly bound into a policy of large-scale rearmament funded through increased taxes and cuts in social spending — is the most likely outcome of the election.

This is the response of bourgeois politicians across Europe in response to the changed situation around the Ukraine war.

Bitter recriminations have broken out between Die Linke and BSW but the reality is that the combined, if heterogeneous, left vote has returned to the levels it reached when the left formations from East and West found a way to work together in Die Linke.

There exists a crisis in working-class politics with the AfD able to reach sections of the working class on issues over which the left is divided and unable to articulate a coherent position.

While some in Die Linke, and especially key elements in its leadership, have collapsed into liberal and identity politics, BSW has formulated an unorthodox and distinctive position on migration that is critical of the actual practice of the German state hitherto.

But it has been unable to convey the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist nature of its overall position or combine this with a sufficiently sophisticated critique of German state policy on migration that deals with the way in which large numbers of working people experience the issue. 

In this they are in much the same position as the left throughout Europe.