The Federal Elections of February 2025, and a Confirmation of Germany’s Continued Rightward March
The federal election to Germany’s lower house of parliament, the 630-seat Bundestag, took place between 8 AM and 6 PM on Sunday, 23 February 2025. On that day, the EU’s most populous member-state, with an electorate of 59.2 million Germans aged 18 and over, drawn from a total population of 84 million, chose their preferred candidates for the 21st Bundestag. This was the fourth ‘snap’ election to the Bundestag, brought forward from the proposed date of 28 September 2025, and preceded by similar events in 1972, 1983, and 2005. The electoral turnout of 82.5% was the highest since German reunification in 1990, and the results were as widely predicted.
The centre-right Christian Democrat partnership of the CDU (Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands) and its Bavarian ally, the CSU (Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern), secured 28.6% of the vote, thereby leading the 29 parties on the ballot. The far-right AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) came second with 20.8%, followed by the centre-left Social Democrats of the SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) with 16.4%, the Greens (Die Grünen) with 11.6%, and, unexpectedly, the left-wing Die Linke (The Left) with 8.8%. The neoliberal FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei) and far-left but socially conservative BSW (Bündnis Sarah Wagenknecht) failed to win Bundestag representation, which requires 5 per cent of the vote, having secured only 4.3% and 4.97% of the vote, respectively.
The disunited three-party governing “traffic-light” coalition of the SPD, FDP, and Greens collapsed in November 2024, following Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s dismissal of FDP finance minister Christian Lindner on the 6th of that month. Unimpressive and unpopular as Chancellor, Scholz failed to survive a no-confidence motion on 16 December, following which President Frank-Walter Steinmeier dissolved the Bundestag on 27 December, setting the date for snap elections on 23 February 2025.
There is much discontent in Europe’s biggest economy, which is also the third-largest in the world. Germany has been in the midst of recession since 2023-the only G7 country with a shrinking economy. High inflation, cost-of-living pressures, and high interest rates have stifled the economy. The population is ageing, while the workforce is shrinking, making a pensions crisis most likely. German manufacturing has lost its competitive advantage to China, as exemplified by electric vehicle production, and exports to China are in decline. Germany’s energy-intensive energy-intensive chemicals, metals, and paper industries have been deprived of cheap Russian natural gas since the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 and subsequent sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Federal government spending has been limited by a debt brake (Schuldenbremse) to 0.35 % of GDP since 2016, in the interest of fiscal discipline and a balanced budget. This parsimony has constrained investment in public infrastructure, with noticeable results. Roads, railways, waterways, bridges, and digital infrastructure have all felt the pinch with the inevitable consequences. Given the high costs of a green energy transition, there is also reduced appetite for climate change action and a renewed interest in fossil fuels.
Immigration is another major source of concern, while multiculturalism is increasingly challenged. Recent terrorist attacks by asylum seekers have added to the resentment. Back in 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel openly welcomed immigrants, claiming Wir schaffen das! (We can do it!), leading to a net migration of 1.1 million as Germany became the largest European destination for refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war for asylum in the EU.
High immigration and an economic downturn have provided fertile soil for the AfD, which has steadily grown in popularity since it was established in February 2013, initially as an anti-EU party, only to gather momentum during the migrant crisis of 2015. In September 2024, it became the first far-right political party to win a state election in Germany since the Second World War, winning 33% of the vote in Thuringia, and also coming second in Saxony with 30%. Support for the AfD has most recently been voiced by Elon Musk-entitled to his opinion given his major investment in the Tesla Gigafactory in the town of Grünheide in Brandenburg.
The current German political system of proportional representation ensures that no single political party can secure an absolute majority of 316 seats in the Bundestag, making coalition governments the norm. No party has won an absolute majority since September 1957, when a previous CDU/CSU pairing triumphed in the election to the third Bundestag. Hitherto, the most stable possible governing alliance has been the so-called grand coalition of the mainstream CDU and SPD, which seems likely given the polls and the fact that a “firewall” keeps other parties from forming an alliance with the AfD.
Germany’s new government will be led by conservatives, keeping the AfD out of power even as the political right is in the ascendancy. The new Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, CDU leader since 2002, has taken his party further to the right from his centrist predecessor Angela Merkel, whose 16-year reign as Chancellor and Mother of the Nation ended in 2021. Under Merz, Germany is likely to be defined by cuts to taxes and welfare benefits, tighter border controls, deterrence for asylum seekers, continued support for Ukraine, and the determination to boost European defences in response to President Trump’s unwillingness to continue to support NATO at the cost of American military spending. Interesting times lie ahead!
Ashis Banerjee