Analysis: "Voters showed dissatisfaction with Merkel's policy"

The elections in eastern Germany have been followed with great concern by the Berlin government office. While the states make up only ten percent of the country's population, new disaster figures for the major central parties can trigger a government crisis.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has stayed away from the electoral campaigns in the east. Soberly, it has been understood that her performances would do more harm than good.

The right-wing Nationalist Party Alternative for Germany, AFD, has been particularly successful in the eastern part of the country. In Saxony, Merkel's Christian Democratic CDU has dominated since the reunification. In Sunday's election, according to forecasts, the CDU will still be the largest party, but the AFD will increase significantly. Alternatives for Germany have only existed for six years, but in Saxony they have almost doubled their voter support in four years. The state of Brandenburg has the same tendency.

It is the AFD's clear opposition to immigration that has prompted many to leave Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party. But also a dissatisfaction with the general social development in the eastern part of the country comes into play.

The Left Party Die Linke previously held a stable position in the East, but the party's immigration positive line has led many of its voters to move to the AFD.

Many of the AFD voters believe that West Germany took over the wrecked GDR thirty years ago without allowing the East Germans to be involved in the modernization process. They felt unauthorized. Like the second-class Germans, they would be quiet and grateful for the billions that flowed in from the West. Wages and living standards are still not at the same level in the two parts of the country.

The clear tendency in German politics is that the two major middle parties, which have been in power under Merkel's leadership, lose voter support. Especially the Social Democratic SPD has experienced devastating results in elections after elections.

In the elections to the European Parliament, the AFD did not receive the strong support they hoped for. The party landed at 11 percent, which was lower than in the German Bundestag election in 2017 when the AFD received 12.6 percent of the vote.

The Green Party has been the big winner in recent years due to the climate issue, especially among young people in the big cities. In the EU elections last spring, they doubled their voter support and ended up at just over 20 percent, not long after the CDU gained 22 percent and made its worst nationwide election ever.

The Greens became the second largest party and passed the Social Democrats.

The SPD's major crisis is explained by the government cooperation in Berlin where it is considered to have erased its profile with constant compromises under the dominant leadership of CDU and Merkel. After every election loss, the coalition in Berlin falters under the threat of the SPD throwing in the towel and leaving the government. But the Social Democrats are in the midst of an important change of leadership and do not want to risk a new election tearing down the party even more.

Neither does Angela Merkel want to leave the helm yet. She hopes to remain in office for the next regular election in 2021. Her favorite as a successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has still managed to assert herself particularly well in national politics and within the CDU there are clear tendencies to divide.