The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged to become Germany’s second-largest political party in the February national election, doubling its vote from 10.3 to 20.8 per cent. Co-led by Alice Weidel, a former finance professional with a doctorate in economics, the AfD’s key policies include strict immigration controls and deportations, economic changes such as abandoning the euro to reintroduce the mark, withdrawal from NATO and reversing renewable energy transitions. But it won’t enter government, because the longstanding ‘democratic firewall’ – a commitment by all mainstream parties to exclude the AfD from coalitions – largely remains in place.

This means the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), with its sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which together won the most votes, 28.6 per cent, will likely lead a ‘grand coalition’. Their presumed partner will be the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which led the incumbent governing coalition but was the election’s biggest-loser. The SPD scored just 16 per cent, its worst result in a national parliamentary election in over a century.

The election came seven months earlier than planned after SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unpopular coalition collapsed three years into a term marred by disagreements over economic, fiscal, migration and climate policies. All three coalition partners lost support in the election, with The Greens’ vote falling by 3.1 per cent and the pro-business Free Democratic Party, a frequent coalition partner, dropping out of the Bundestag, German’s national parliament, after falling under the five per cent threshold. The campaign was dominated by concerns over economic stagnation and immigration, intensified by recent terrorist attacks, with CDU leader Friedrich Merz responding to pressure from the right by pushing for tougher migration policies.

AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla called the result ‘historic’ and declared his party to be the new ‘political centre’, a sign of the concerning normalisation of far-right politics in Germany and across Europe.

Deep divisions

The election results reveal a society deeply divided along multiple lines. Young voters dramatically shifted towards both ends of the political spectrum, with close to half of voters aged 18 to 29 supporting either the AfD or The Left party. The AfD won the support of 21 per cent of these young voters, while The Left, which outperformed expectations, gained the votes of 23 per cent of young voters. The Left fared best among first-time voters, helping it almost double its previous national vote share to 8.8 per cent.

But there was a striking gender divide, with young men and women gravitating toward opposite ends of the spectrum: around 25 per cent of men under 25 voted for the AfD compared to just 14 per cent of women in the same age group. On the whole, young male voters were much more likely to express a sense of being displaced and losing their due place in society due to immigration and advances towards gender equality, while young women disproportionately supported parties on the left that emphasised social welfare and equality, and expressed concerns about potential rollbacks of women’s rights under far-right governance. Growing support among young men for extremist right-wing views is now a clear pattern seen in countries across the global north, and increasingly also in the global south.

This polarisation has been intensified by social media echo chambers. The AfD has established a particularly strong presence on platforms such as TikTok, where it reaches predominantly young male audiences. The Left, under charismatic new leadership, also ran a smart social media campaign focused on economic issues and appealing to young people, including via TikTok. Polling at just three per cent two months before the election, this helped revive its fortunes. One of The Left’s key positions is support for migrant’s rights. In contrast, a new left-wing populist pro-Russia and anti-immigration party, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, failed to beat the five per cent threshold.

The east-west divide was equally stark, with the electoral map showing eastern Germany as a sea of AfD blue and western Germany predominantly CDU/CSU black. In eastern states such as Brandenburg and Saxony, the AfD took about a third of the vote despite authorities classifying it as a right-wing extremist organisation. The AfD leader in Thuringia, where the party won the state election last year, has two criminal convictions for using the banned Nazi-era slogan ‘Alles für Deutschland’ (Everything for Germany). AfD supporters have increasingly circumvented the ban through a play on words, chanting ‘Alice für Deutschland’ in campaign rallies.

The far right’s appeal

The AfD’s electoral performance reflected growing voter dissatisfaction with mainstream parties during a time of sustained economic downturn. The 2025 election had the highest turnout, 82.5 per cent, since German reunification. This largely benefited the AfD, which won the support of the biggest share of voters who hadn’t voted last time in 2021.

The AfD, which has taken an opportunistic journey from Euroscepticism to opposing pandemic restrictions to its current emphasis on migration, positions itself as a radical alternative to the mainstream parties, which often seem quite similar. Opposition to renewable energy policies to meet climate goals and to the war in Ukraine are important parts of the AfD’s platform, but more than anything its focus is on opposition to immigration. The AfD has embraced the idea of ‘remigration’, a proposal until recently confined to the political fringes, which means the mass deportation of people with migrant backgrounds.

Weidel enjoyed much of the campaign headlines with a strong social media profile and headline-making interviews, including a long, uncritical livestream conversation with tech billionaire Elon Musk, who wholeheartedly endorsed her. Research however indicated that Musk’s backing didn’t significantly boost the AfD’s performance.

The next government

Against a politically volatile regional and global backdrop, with the new Trump administration forcing a potential realignment of global north geopolitics, the pressure will be on to form a government quickly so that Germany, Europe’s major economic and political power, can play its proper role in the G7 and NATO summits taking place in June.

A Bundestag majority requires 316 seats, a hurdle a two-way coalition between the CDU/CSU and the SPD would just about clear with a combined 328 seats. Negotiations with the more progressive SPD may however face hurdles: the party has rejected Merz’s five-point migration plan and plans to put any coalition deal to a membership referendum.

A three-party coalition involving The Greens would command more seats but likely be less stable. Against that, the small majority a two-party coalition would hold means it wouldn’t take much for it to fall apart. It might not last four years until the next scheduled election, potentially creating more opportunities for the AfD to capitalise on.

Merz, the likely next chancellor, is a corporate lawyer, millionaire business leader and licensed pilot who flies his own plane. He campaigned primarily on economic issues, promising to cut regulations and taxes to stimulate growth. Having assumed the party leadership after it lost power in 2021, he shifted it rightwards on migration and other issues. This likely played a role in his election success, but in the longer term brought the risk of further normalising far-right narratives. If discontent rises with a Merz-led government, more voters may get behind what they see as the AfD’s more authentic anti-immigration stance.

Firewall under strain

The political firewall against the AfD appears likely to survive in the short term, but it’s under unprecedented strain. While Merz has repeatedly rejected the idea of forming a coalition with the AfD, he recently relied on its votes to pass a parliamentary resolution on migration, an apparent breach of the firewall.

Even excluded from government, the AfD’s electoral success gives it influence over policy debates, particularly on immigration. The CDU/CSU’s rightward shift, along with the support the AfD received from influential figures such as Musk and US vice president JD Vance, has further legitimised its position in German politics. It will be doing everything it can to undermine the firewall. Weidel has denounced it as an undemocratic manoeuvre that excludes millions of voters, and on election night the AfD’s youth wing leader pronounced the firewall dead. Breaches will likely start through more cooperation with the CDU/CSU in regional-level politics, building on some recent AfD gains in state elections.

The challenge ahead

Germany is at a critical juncture. The AfD’s surge poses profound questions about how Germans in different demographics perceive their democracy, economy and national identity. Mainstream parties may have one last chance to satisfy public concern on issues such as the economy and migration before the next election.

Across Europe, a withdrawal from mainstream parties and embrace of populism reflects broader disillusionment with establishment politics, seen as unresponsive to people’s concerns in difficult economic times. In Germany, it remains to be seen whether democratic institutions and civil society can respond to the rise of the AfD while protecting fundamental values. The existence of deep divides – young versus older, men versus women, east versus west, urban versus rural – suggests that rebuilding democratic consensus will require more than policy tweaks. The test for Germany’s democracy is to find ways to address public grievances while reinforcing guardrails against extremism.

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