The Collapse of Trust in Traditional Parties: Germany Chooses the Extremes

Policy paper by Hamza Ali, Progress Center for Policies – London

Introduction:
Germany is a federal state made up of sixteen states, each with its own parliament and government. On September 20, 2026, voters in two states went to the polls: Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a coastal state in the northeast, and Berlin, which is both the national capital and a state in its own right. Preliminary results showed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) winning in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, while The Left party won a landslide victory in Berlin. Together, the two results dealt a double blow to Chancellor Friedrich Merz, head of the federal government, and his party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the country’s traditional center-right party. What do these results signify? What are their underlying causes? And what are their likely implications for the German political landscape?

The Facts:
According to preliminary results, the CDU won only 4.9% of the vote in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, below the five percent threshold required to enter the state parliament. This means the party may be excluded from the parliament entirely, and it would be the worst state result in its history. Merz himself described the result as a “catastrophe.”

The Alternative for Germany won 37.9% of the vote in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, its second-best result in any state election, narrowly ahead of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which won 35.7%. This victory comes two weeks after the party’s surprise win in Saxony-Anhalt, where it is currently seeking to form its first regional government.
In Berlin, The Left was on course to win around 25% of the vote, five points ahead of the ruling CDU. Its lead candidate, Elif Eralp, a human rights advocate who campaigned wearing a “rent cap” necklace, won 26% of the vote, exceeding expectations by several points. The party doubled its result compared with the previous election, which could make her the first mayor of Berlin from The Left.

Turnout in Berlin reached 74.2%, an increase of 11.3% over the previous election. According to a poll by Infratest dimap published by ARD, the party won 48% among voters aged 25 to 34, and 42% among those aged 16 to 24.
These results reflect a clear decline of the center of German politics. Merz faced calls to resign after the CDU lost large swathes of support to the Alternative for Germany in the Saxony-Anhalt election earlier in the month. The party held two crisis meetings on Sunday evening, in which the discussions turned into “verbal clashes,” attended by seven of the party’s state leaders.

Analysis:
A historic defeat for the CDU:
The CDU has never before failed to clear the five percent threshold in a state election. The German electoral system gives any party below this threshold zero seats, a measure designed to prevent parliament from fragmenting into small parties. It was almost inconceivable that this measure would affect the CDU, the German equivalent of the British Conservative Party and a pillar of coalition governments for decades. Yet the results showed that it not only recorded the worst state result in its history, but was also ejected from a regional parliament for the first time in the postwar era.

Reforms and popular discontent:
Merz has staked his position on a reform agenda that he says will strengthen Germany’s competitiveness and restore growth to the European Union’s largest economy, and he has called on voters to be patient until the results materialize. But Germany’s export-based economic model continues to suffer from increasing Chinese competition and from the tariff wars waged by US President Donald Trump. Voters appear unwilling to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The chancellor’s agenda includes raising the retirement age to shore up the pension system, cutting some health insurance benefits to curb rising premiums, and restricting sick leave with the aim of boosting growth. Many of these measures impose clear costs on ordinary voters, giving both the far right and a revitalized left ample opportunity to capitalize on popular discontent.

The advance of the AfD:
In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the Alternative for Germany achieved its best result in any state election to date. Although the party has no real chance of taking power because of the “firewall,” the agreement among the main parties not to work with it, it can celebrate another success in unsettling the German political establishment. There is a growing consensus among analysts that the traditional policies offered by the main parties to address Germany’s problems no longer resonate with the public.

Berlin: the rise of the Left:
In Berlin, The Left was on course to win around 25% of the vote, five points ahead of the CDU. Elif Eralp, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, ran a campaign focused on the cost of living and rising housing prices in the capital. She pledged to deliver on the promise to nationalize the large private landlords who control a significant share of the city’s housing. This focus on housing reflects how much rent shapes life in Berlin, where 84% of the city’s residents rent their homes, more than half of them from private landlords.

The Mamdani effect:
In a report, The Washington Post described Eralp as an opportunity for “Mamdani populism” to win in Germany. The report revealed that members of The Left traveled to New York in the weeks before the race to learn about Zohran Mamdani’s campaign and met with some of his advisers. The party celebrated Mamdani’s victory on social media as “a victory for the working class.” Analysts noted that the party emulated a clear strategy from Mamdani: keeping the message simple and down to earth.

A generational shift:
Eralp’s rise comes amid a change in The Left’s leadership, whose young leaders have built large followings on social media. Turnout was 74.2%, an increase of 11.3% over the previous election. A poll showed that the party won 48% among voters aged 25 to 34, and 42% among those aged 16 to 24. This indicates that the victory was not merely a mobilization of the traditional base, but an attraction of voters who had previously abstained from elections, many of them young and from immigrant or minority backgrounds.

Turbulence ahead:
A Reuters report concluded that the erosion of the center of German politics has become evident, pointing to a general sense of economic malaise and disillusionment with the traditional parties. This comes ahead of a series of state elections in western Germany next year. The weak German economy is becoming a decisive factor at the ballot box, as voters grow frustrated with the rising cost of living and economic uncertainty.

Conclusion:
The message from Germany is clear. In a single night, at opposite ends of the country, voters delivered the same verdict: the center offers nothing, and they are no longer willing to wait. The CDU, which was a fixed pillar of German governments for decades, was ejected from a state parliament for the first time in the postwar era. In the capital, a party that emerged from the communist legacy of East Germany won the city. These were not anomalous results; they are the price of a politics that asked ordinary people to bear the costs of reform, to be patient until the benefits arrive, and to accept that there is no alternative.

What is winning instead is decisiveness and ideas that break from the neoliberal orthodoxy that has guided policy for decades. The warnings have been plentiful, from Saxony-Anhalt to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania to Berlin, and they must be taken seriously. A center that keeps offering managed decline and calling it responsibility will continue to be punished. The vacuum it leaves will not remain empty; it will be filled by whoever offers voters something, and this month it was filled by the opposite ends of the political spectrum.

For the Left in particular, a clear blueprint has begun to take shape, and strategy should be calibrated accordingly: using social media; keeping the message simple and connected to people’s lives, whether on rent, wages, or the cost of living; mobilizing voters whom the system has long ignored; and, most importantly, offering a clear alternative rather than a softer version of the status quo. Berlin, like New York before it, shows that the voices calling on the Left to water down its message are wrong: conviction, not caution, is what drove people to the polls.
In Germany, the heat is evident and the direction is clear. A new politics is needed, and voters are demanding it.