Not only is Saxony-Anhalt one of the German federal states with low immigration (7%), but even in the areas of that territory where the fewest foreign residents live is precisely where an ultra party like the AfD has achieved the best results. This observation gives rise to multiple reflections about current social perceptions and how they spread. It is likely that in recent days many Germans have suddenly learned where Ceuta is. But it is also worth asking whether immigration is just one factor among a set of reasons that fuel votes for far-right parties and, in the German case, also ex-communists. While the undeniable rise of the AfD is notable, the collapse of the two main parties, the conservatives and Christian Democrats of the CDU and the Social Democrats of the SPD, who have supported the democratic system in recent decades, is even more significant. Could the same happen in Spain?
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In fact, it has already happened. This is how Héctor Sánchez Margalef, principal researcher at CIDOB and expert in new political movements and democracy, responds. In his opinion, Germany is experiencing an implosion of its traditional party system that already occurred in Spain following the Great Recession. That financial crisis was the trigger for a fragmentation that put the parties that had alternated power in Spain in recent decades in check. In 2014, Podemos emerged, and around that time Ciudadanos made its leap into Spanish politics. Barely two years later, the Socialists suffered a historic debacle, with 85 seats and only 22% of the votes, at the hands of a force like Pablo Iglesias’s, which was already close to overtaking them. And three years later, the same happened on the other side: the PP recorded its worst result with 89 deputies and 16% of the votes, with Ciudadanos nipping at its heels.
In Saxony-Anhalt, we have seen something similar, albeit with caveats. The phenomenon is very similar in the case of the CDU, which was left with 17% of the votes, and the AfD, which soared to 44%. On the left, the SPD has held on, but in reality its decline had already occurred earlier and it has not managed to recover. Other parties like the Greens have grown, but the traditional force of eastern Germany, Die Linke (The Left), continues to decline, while the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a nationalist and populist left-wing formation, has emerged, giving us reason to comment on the particular case of Catalonia.
In Germany, the east-west axis influences voting as in Catalonia the independence-Spanish nationalism vector does
Timidly but increasingly, Vox and Aliança Catalana are coinciding in votes, despite their nationalist sides distancing them. To the right-left axis, in Catalonia one must superimpose the independence-Spanish nationalism axis with all its gradations. It is possible that in the future the Catalan right-wing parties will coincide in the Parliament and challenge a left-wing Generalitat government but, even if arithmetically those forces added up, it would be impossible for them to form a government due to their differences on the national level. Something similar happens in Germany with the east-west axis. Sánchez Margalef points out that this influences rejection of immigration, especially in the east, where citizens are particularly receptive to those messages against the foreign population.
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Saxony-Anhalt is a state that, 36 years after reunification, suffers progressive depopulation and whose citizens feel abandoned by Berlin. In principle, immigration should be welcomed, but a rejection phenomenon occurs in response to the messages of “foreign invasion” that run rampant and that its inhabitants feel as a threat to the idiosyncrasy of that territory. The fear that a distinct identity will dissolve with the arrival of migrants is reproduced in some areas of Catalonia and is one of the cards of an independence party like AC. In this case, Aliança per Catalunya has an advantage over Vox, since the trigger of a threatened language works more intensely. “When there is fear of the future, people take refuge in the past,” Sánchez Margalef comments. And that is something that works in the case of the former East Germany, for example, with the emergence of BSW, an anti-immigration and pro-Russian formation.
It is not just immigration; inflation has historically been one of the factors that have most destabilized political systems
In Saxony-Anhalt, a weakened political system is evident, the one formed by the CDU, SPD, and liberals for a long time. The rise of the far right comes not only from the radicalized vote of the traditional right but above all from abstention, which means that the disenchantment with institutions and governments of a significant part of the population has turned into a protest vote. One of the main factors that have driven this process is inflation. The rise in prices in societies where the middle and working classes see their incomes buy less and less was decisive in the vote for Trump. In fact, historically it has been one of the most destabilizing factors, from the Roman Empire to the rise of Nazism, passing through populist regimes in Latin America; price variation directly affects people’s quality of life through their purchasing power. In Germany, there is also the added uncertainty of a deindustrialization process, with the rising Chinese threat.
In Saxony-Anhalt, the CDU and SPD have collapsed because both have collaborated in governance in recent years and, therefore, the discontent makes both responsible. In Spain, at this moment, both the PP and PSOE maintain a more or less solid voter base, although far from absolute majorities. The Populars, for example, retain 32% of the vote, according to the 40db survey recently published in El País, while Vox approaches 18%. For Santiago Abascal’s party to follow in the footsteps of the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, it would need to become an attractive formation for a more transversal voter. Whether that happens is also in the hands of the two main parties who, for now, are making it easy for them.
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