Germany’s September 2026 state elections exposed a painful truth: parties on the far right and left win, while centrist parties suffer heavy losses. The far-right AfD took 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt and 38.2% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, while the far-left Die Linke topped the poll in Berlin with 25.7%. Different electorates chose different challengers, but the message was the same: deep frustration with mainstream parties (Silbiger and Stelzenmüller, 2026).
Yet this is asymmetric polarisation, not a balanced advance of two extremes. Die Linke’s Berlin breakthrough contrasted with losses in the two eastern states, where the AfD dominated. Nor did every centrist party collapse: the SPD retained 35.5% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Baers, 2026; tagesschau.de, 2026). The centre survives, but the far right poses the much greater challenge to Germany’s political future.
The AfD’s success is especially unsettling because it has broadened its appeal without moderating. Its evolution from Eurosceptic protest towards ethnonationalism contrasts with the pursuit of governing respectability by Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and France’s Rassemblement National (Lippert and Cebulak, 2025; Sindreu, 2026). In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD won despite its radical platform, which includes an attack on churches, friendship with Russia and the abolition of public radio and television.
Nor are voters simply unaware of the radicalism. Infratest dimap found that 87% of AfD voters in Saxony-Anhalt considered the party broadly centrist despite individual right-wing extremists (tagesschau.de, 2026). When established parties are associated with broken promises, radicalism can signal authenticity rather than danger. Breaking taboos suggests a willingness to break with a discredited establishment. Radicalism can therefore become a ticket to success, not merely an electoral liability (Lippert and Cebulak, 2025; Schwesinger, 2026).
These elections are not a national referendum. But they reshape the governing parties’ incentives at the federal level. As the AfD grows, coalitions excluding it become harder to assemble and more internally diverse (Silbiger and Stelzenmüller, 2026). The danger is a shrinking centre governing against a powerful opposition while struggling to offer meaningful choices within itself. Keeping the far right out of office matters. But it is no substitute for a programme that makes democratic cooperation worth supporting.
For the CDU/CSU–SPD federal coalition, these results tighten the reform trap. Population ageing, rising health and care costs and low growth make adjustment increasingly urgent (Reuters, 2026). But reforms involving working longer, higher contributions or reduced entitlements create identifiable losers now. Electoral punishment encourages caution just when the coalition needs to act together.
The government adopted a reform programme in July, including tax relief, affordable housing measures, pension and labour market reforms (Rinke and Murray, 2026). The far right’s rise threatens implementation. The elections tempt regional politicians to press for reopening early-retirement proposals. The coalition risks retreating from its strategy without agreeing on a convincing alternative. The government’s hesitation looks like incompetence, not sensitivity to public concerns.
Both parties are tempted to blame each other. The CDU can cast the SPD as the defender of unaffordable benefits; the SPD can portray the CDU as indifferent to ordinary families. Each partner may gain by distancing itself from painful decisions. Together, they lose credibility. A coalition cannot convince voters of its competence while its members advertise each other’s failures.
The economic backdrop raises the stakes. The government forecasts moderate growth. Yet unemployment remained close to three million in September, 40,000 above a year earlier (Bundesagentur für Arbeit, 2026), while inflation reached 3.3% (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2026).
The risk is a self-reinforcing spiral. Weak economic performance undermines government support; fear of losing voters discourages difficult decisions; policy uncertainty deters investment and hiring; continued disappointment strengthens anti-system politics. A political system that repeatedly fails to deliver material security makes radical alternatives easier to sell. Breaking this spiral requires leadership built on a credible bargain over who bears the costs and what citizens receive in return. Both governing parties must discard familiar ideological reflexes.
For the CDU, affordability and social justice must become core economic priorities, not concessions grudgingly offered to the SPD. Business tax cuts and deregulation alone will not reassure households struggling with housing, energy and care costs. The party should commit to affordable public services and fair burden-sharing, asking prosperous groups to contribute and reassessing protected occupational privileges.
For the SPD, protecting the welfare state cannot mean defending every existing benefit. The party should support painful, selective social-spending cuts that preserve basic security and free resources for investment. This includes gradually reducing generous early-retirement options, with safeguards for physically demanding work, or recalibrating benefits for better-off households and civil servants.
Neither party can shift the difficult half of this bargain to the other. The CDU must defend fairness as energetically as competitiveness; the SPD must defend reform as convincingly as solidarity. Germany’s centre must show that democratic government can distribute burdens fairly, improve everyday life and take decisions its leaders will defend together.
By Anke Hassel
References
Author–date citations link to the entries below. Reference titles link to the sources. Sources checked on 15 October 2026.
Baers, H. (2026, 21 September). Briefing: Wahlen in MV und Berlin – Linke in Berlin vorne, deutliche Niederlagen für CDU. Deutschlandfunk.
Bundesagentur für Arbeit (2026, 30 September). Arbeitsmarkt im September 2026: Herbstbelebung beginnt ohne Schwung. Presseinfo Nr. 37.
Lippert, F. and Cebulak, P. (2025, 12 June). Ever more radical, ever more popular? The AfD after Germany’s 2025 election. KEW Publishing. Policy paper.
Reuters (2026, 8 October). German coalition affirms reform agenda amid ‘historic test’ for democracy.
Rinke, A. and Murray, M. (2026, 2 July). Under-fire German ruling coalition unveils reform package to boost economy. Reuters.
Schwesinger, H. (2026, 15 September). Erfolg der AfD: Warum schreckt „rechtsextremistisch“ nicht mehr ab? tagesschau.de.
Silbiger, M. and Stelzenmüller, C. (2026, 25 September). Three state elections throw German politics into disarray. Brookings Institution.
Sindreu, J. (2026, 7 October). Le Pen will struggle to be France’s Meloni. Reuters Breakingviews.
Statistisches Bundesamt (2026, 13 October). Inflationsrate im September 2026 bei +3,3 %. Pressemitteilung Nr. 364.
tagesschau.de (2026, 6 September). Liveticker zur Sachsen-Anhalt-Wahl. Entries at 18:21 (“Stimmen für eine rechtsextreme Partei – was sagen die Daten zum AfD-Erfolg?”, analysis by Jörg Schönenborn) and 22:10 (“Darum wählten Menschen die Linke”).
About the Author
Anke Hassel is Professor of Public Policy at the Hertie School. From 2016 to 2019 she was the Scientific Director of the WSI at the Hans Böckler Foundation. Anke Hassel has extensive international experience and scientific expertise in the fields of the labour market, social partnership, codetermination and the comparative political economy of developed industrial nations. She was an expert in the fact-finding committee on growth, prosperity and quality of life in the German Bundestag (2012-13); the expert commission on the future of the Hans Böckler Foundation (2015-17) and chairwoman of the expert group on Workers' Voice and Good Corporate Governance in Transnational Companies in Europe (2015-2018). She has also been a member of the German Federal Government's High-Tech Forum since January 2019.
