This weekend, German voters will go to the polls in what is set to be the country’s most anticipated and perhaps consequential election in two decades. Issues previously off-limits to debate – immigration, free speech, foreign policy, history – are now at the forefront of discussion, with potential ramifications for the rest of Europe and the entire Western world.

The development causing the most consternation on the political left and excitement among some corners of the political right is the surging popularity of the right-wing Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party. Fueled by frustration with rising energy prices, surging crime, mass migration, and a political system that seems more interested in clamping down on those who highlight problems rather than resolving them, the AfD has surged from the 11 percent it won in the 2021 elections to over 20 percent in the most recent polls.

That may seem far from a majority, but only once has a single party won a majority in a German election since 1919. The AfD, instead, seeks to break into the system by winning enough seats to present the existing parties, especially the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU), with the choice of imposing a left-wing government on an electorate that just voted for conservative governance or recognizing the AfD and its issues as legitimate.

Understanding German Coalitional Politics

The German electoral system works on proportional representation. Seats are divided into district seats (similar to U.S. House seats) and a nationwide list, with the requirement that the total seats any party receives cannot exceed that party’s percentage of the nationwide vote (i.e. that going to parties receiving seats). Parties are also required to win five percent of the nationwide vote to qualify for seats, and the chancellor must be elected by an absolute majority of the duly elected members of the Bundestag, the German parliament.

Removing the chancellor requires not just a majority vote to remove but a majority vote in favor of an alternative candidate. That is why Angela Merkel was forced into a coalition following the 2013 elections despite her party winning 311 of 631 seats. With the exception of 1957, when the CDU won 50.2 percent of the vote, no single party won a majority, requiring every government to be a coalition.

This restricts the role of voters to determining the mathematical environment in which parties bargain for government rather than electing governments themselves.

Between 1949 and 1998, German politics featured three main parties. The CDU, the left-wing Social Democratic Party (SPD), and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) represent the secular liberal middle class that rejected the conservatism of the CDU and the left-wing economics of the SPD. The FDP was the smallest of the three, but they helped determine who governed, serving in coalition with the CDU from 1949-65 and 1982-1998 and with the SPD from 1969-1982.

In the 1980s, the FDP was joined in the Bundestag by the Greens, who grew out of the left-wing counterculture movement of the 1980s. While initially considered too extreme to join a government (and the existence of an FDP/CDU majority until 1998 rendered the question moot), they moderated after the end of the Cold War as the Baby Boomer electorate aged, joining the SPD’s government in 1998.

What followed appeared to be the basis of a four-party system functioning as a de facto two-party system. If the CDU/FDP had a majority between them, they would form a center-right government. If the Greens and SPD won a majority, they would form a center-left government.

But the 2000s also saw the rise of two new parties. In the early years of the new century, left-wing defectors from the SPD merged with the Party of Democratic Socialism, the old East German Communist Party, to join Die Linke (the Left). Then, in 2012, former CDU activists angry over the leftward drift of the CDU under Angela Merkel formed the AfD, merging with various smaller right-wing parties.

Unlike with the Greens, the SPD and CDU refused to work with either the Left or AfD. As a result, they formed either “grand” coalitions between the SPD/CDU (2005-2009, 2013-2021) or a three-way coalition, such as the SPD-Green-FDP government, since 2021.

This has been disastrous for both the smaller parties and German politics, with polls showing that more than a third of Germans plan to vote for “non-system” parties.

Why the AfD Is on the Rise

The rise of the AfD is largely a product of the cynical manner in which Angela Merkel maintained her hold on power with the support of the SPD.

For 16 years, Merkel governed according to a cynical version of British statesman Benjamin Disraeli’s famous phrase, “conservative men with liberal measures.” She implemented liberal policies like shutting down nuclear plants, legalizing same-sex marriage, implementing speech restrictions, and welcoming more than a million Syrian refugees. She argued to her party that it was indispensable to implement left-wing policies to maintain power; while telling her coalition partners she must remain in office to achieve left-wing policies.

When Merkel’s policies provoked a backlash, with right-wing voters leaving for the AfD, it actually strengthened her position. She effectively blackmailed the SPD into remaining in her coalition after they tried to leave in 2017 by raising the risk they might empower the AfD.

The winner from this system was Angela Merkel, who for over a decade was able to implement her idiosyncratic policy agenda largely unimpeded by popular opinion or, as it turned out, the long term health of the German nation. The losers were everyone else. Other politicians within the CDU found themselves sidelined unless they abandoned their principles. The other political parties faced charges of betrayal from their voters. The German people witnessed skyrocketing energy prices and migrant crime.

The German people have been crying out for change, but it remains to be seen if the politicians can deliver. The current SPD-FDP-Green ruling coalition of Olaf Scholz, who replaced Merkel in 2021, removed the CDU from power but revealed that Merkelism without Merkel is a Potemkin Village without the charade. It has only succeeded in highlighting the problems it cannot solve.

Meanwhile, the CDU, led since 2021 by Merkel’s lifelong enemy, Friedrich Merz, has tried to move rightward, including testing the waters of cooperation with the AfD. While that has been rewarded with higher poll ratings, Merz has faced sabotage by Merkel loyalists, with the former Chancellor herself emerging to denounce Merz for trying to pass immigration restrictions with the support of AfD votes. Enough defectors followed her orders to cause the vote to fail.

What Do the Polls Say?

Polling averages currently have the alliance of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) leading with around 30 percent of the vote, followed by the AfD at a bit over 20 percent, the Social Democrats at 15-16 percent, the Greens at 12-13 percent, the Left at 7-9 percent, and both the FDP and the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht or BSW, a socially conservative, economically leftwing party, hovering just below the five percent threshold needed to win seats.

It is virtually certain the CDU will come in first. Despite some bluster online about “saving Germany,” the AfD’s plan to save the country involves coming second, not first, and in such a way as to create a majority with the CDU.

Joining a coalition with Merz next month does not seem viable – even if Merz wished to do so, Merkel likely would remove him for trying. But by demonstrating that it is mathematically possible for CDU and AfD to form a government, the AfD will make clear that any decision by the CDU to form a government with the Greens/SPD would be out of choice, not necessity.

This would make clear to German voters that any policy concessions to the left are unnecessary, thereby providing ammunition for right-wing elements within the CDU either to defect to the AfD or push for a future coalition with the AfD. The AfD’s path to government is with the CDU, and that can be accomplished only with the carrot of offering a partnership on terms far more generous than those of the SPD/Greens while also maximizing the damage to the CDU from working with the left-wing parties.

Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech in Munich last weekend and the support of Elon Musk for the AfD have likewise indicated to the CDU that a partnership with the AfD would bring it a lot of American support.

All of this is designed to contrast the bitter pill Merz will be forced to swallow when he turns left. Despite the presence of an AfD/CDU majority representing a clear mandate for a right-wing government, both the Greens and SPD have made clear they intend to demand concessions on immigration so as to undermine Merz’s leadership, restore the Merkel faction, and leave the CDU dependent on themselves.

It is difficult to imagine what mandate the German left thinks it will have to make such demands, but then, when has the center-left establishment ever needed a mandate? The entire ruling coalition is headed for a shellacking. The FDP is faring the worst. Blamed for the few left-wing policies the government has passed and for its general dysfunction on everything else, the FDP has alienated everyone. Right-wing voters have left for the AfD and CDU, while socially liberal voters have gone to the Greens. Polls show the FDP is likely to fail to reach the five percent threshold.

The SPD is blamed for the dysfunction of the government and represents the continuity Merkelism. Green supporters denounce them for being insufficiently supportive of Ukraine and tolerating the FDP’s disruption. Their own voters see them as ineffective, pursuing a policy hostile enough to Russia to cost Germany its energy supply but not supportive enough to help Ukraine win. Polls show them headed for their worst result in history, perhaps as low as 15 percent.

The Greens, with a core electorate, have fared the best, holding their support around 12-14 percent, but their prize may well be the fate of the FDP. The Greens have, more than any other party, defined the AfD as a threat to the constitution. If, by chance, the SPD was unable or unwilling to provide the CDU with the majority for a government, it would be politically impossible for the Greens to refuse to do so if the alternative was the AfD.

A year ago, the Left seemed headed for oblivion, but an aggressive TikTok campaign has allowed them to rebrand themselves as more AOC than Joe Biden and surge to the high single digits. It is not enough to make a left-wing government viable, but it seems certain that the SPD/Greens will try to present them as a “normal” alternative to working with the AfD.

The BSW, once polling in double-digits, has been rocked by infighting, and it now looks like they may not cross five percent. If they do, they have worked with the CDU at the state level despite their left-wing origins and might join an SPD-CDU coalition.

What to Look For

Will the CDU break 30 percent? Anything above that figure strengthens Merz internally and suggests cooperation with the AfD was electorally fruitful. Anything below, and Merkel’s allies will claim his flirtation offended voters.

Will the AfD and CDU have enough to create a majority while the CDU-SPD will not? The need to include both the Greens and SPD in a coalition, excluding the AfD, would both threaten democratic legitimacy and increase the humiliating demands the Greens/SPD will make of Merz. Those demands will also only strengthen the AfD, and the desire of many in the CDU to find a way to work with it.

Walter Samuel is the pseudonym of a prolific international affairs writer and academic. He has worked in Washington as well as in London and Asia, and holds a Doctorate in International History.