By Athena Papakosta

A triumph for the German far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Thuringia, which during the Cold War was under communist rule. A slap in the face for Berlin and Olaf Solz’s three-party government coalition, which is suffering serious losses.

For the first time since 1945 extreme right wins the elections in state at Germany and a new wind of populism is blowing in Europe’s largest economy.

Pollsters may record that if federal elections were held in the country today, the far right would finish in second place, but analysts choose to focus on the fact that East and West Germany are drifting apart 34 years after German reunification.

So far, in none of the states in the west of the country, the far-right party “Alternative for Germany” is not gaining ground, according to opinion polls. On the contrary, Sunday’s results in Thuringia, where the AfD won the elections, and Saxony, where it threatened to cut the thread first, show that the political landscape in Germany’s eastern states is changing. Voters are leaving the political center and turning to populism.

What’s wrong? The Financial Times point out that Sunday’s results reflect voter frustration with high inflation, a stagnant economy and soaring energy costs. But according to his analysis Guardianthe population in the east of the country, compared to the population in the west, is older. Unemployment is higher, but the difference is marginal, with the economies of the eastern states now growing faster. Therefore, one could tentatively conclude that the distance from the protest to the ballot box to exercise the right to vote is longer and certainly not a straight line.

For the sociologist Steffen Mau East Germany votes differently from West Germany because, now being able to compare with it economically, it claims its own identity. However, for the background Christina Morrina the reasons are related to how the AfD managed to exploit the historical experience of the pseudo-democracy of the communist regime to manage to mobilize more voters.

In particular, as she explained in a recent interview with the British newspaper, “the communist narrative of how democracy works was deeply populist” as it defended itself as “more representative of the people” than the Western model of democracy of the time “which represented the interests of capitalism”.

Through regular demonstrations every Monday, according to Morrina, the AfD took advantage of the common experience of East Germans that to be heard one cannot simply do so by voting and representing a deeply racist way of thinking and not some different democratic tradition that separated East Germans from West Germans as more “pure” compared to all the influences that West Germany received after the student protests of ’68.

Now, according to analysts, the questions raised about Germany’s political identity are many. The balance of political power has been disrupted due to the fragmentation of the central political scene, while it remains unknown whether the country will succeed in curbing the rise of far-right extremism in the future.

The next election is on September 22 and the state of Brandenburg is expected, according to opinion polls, to deliver another far-right victory and Germany, a year before a federal election, looks like a crucial political minefield for the day ahead. in Europe.