Germany elected a new parliament on Sunday. Robert Dale takes a first look at the results

The outgoing German government took a thrashing in Sunday’s elections. The coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and free-market Liberals has been thrown out, with just 32.3% of the vote, compared to 52.8% in 2021. The Liberals have been kicked out of parliament altogether.

For the Social Democrats, this was a historic defeat. With just 16.4%, it was their worst result in a national election since 1890. The far-right AfD is now more popular among workers than the Social Democrats.

The ‘winners’ were the Christian Democrats. As the largest party, they will lead the next coalition. Friedrich ‘Blackrock’ Merz will be the next chancellor. But their vote – 28.5% – was their second-worst since 1949.

All German governments since reunification in 1989 have been different combinations of the four parties named above – Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, Greens and Liberals. The neoliberal unity party, one could call them. Until 2013, they held more than 80% of the vote. That share has now fallen to barely 60%.

This election was a ‘reverse popularity contest’. The currently least-disliked party wins. There is little sign of positive enthusiasm for any of the parties. That also applies to the AfD, where about half their voters say they are motivated by disappointment with the other parties. And to the Left Party, whose last-minute spike in support was clearly driven by opposition to the AfD. However, this was certainly not an apathy election. The turnout of 83% was the highest since 1987.

The far-right AfD did well, gaining 20.8%. All the mainstream parties promised not to form a coalition with them, although Friedrich Merz would probably love to. Notably, the AfD took 38% of manual workers’ votes, followed by 22% for the Christian Democrats and just 12% for the Social Democrats. This poses a whole string of tough questions for the left.

One place to start will be the very impressive youth vote for the Left Party. Of first-time voters, 26% supported the Left Party. One driver of this, and of the Left Party’s overall recovery, was certainly the wave of very large demonstrations against the far right over the past month. Until four weeks ago, the Left Party was expected to fall at the 5% hurdle. In the end, it got 8.8%. Here again, the motivation is largely negative: to oppose the AfD. All to the good.

The other left party, the BSW, failed to get in by the tiniest margin. They certainly lost votes over their anti-migration stance. And there is no meaningful movement backing up their opposition to war in Ukraine and genocide in Gaza.

Whoever forms the government will be in for a bumpy ride. The economy has been in recession for two years now. Manufacturing industry is in crisis. And Trump’s apparent withdrawal from the proxy war in Ukraine has left EU leaders reeling.

Apart from the demonstrations against the far right, there is currently little movement on the ground. A number of public-sector pay disputes are ongoing, with a series of short stoppages, but they remain firmly under the control of the bureaucracy. And recent settlements on the rail (over pay) and at Volkswagen (big wage cuts to avoid redundancies) have been bitterly disappointing.

So it’s all quiet on the German front for now. Who knows for how long?

Robert Dale lives in the Berlin region, where he has been active in socialist politics since the 1980s.