Afd Breaks the Sanitary Cord, Shakes Europe and Warns Spain

The CDU has ended up prevailing in the German elections with the highest turnout since reunification in 1990. The Christian Democratic leader, Friedrich Merz, has already ruled out an alliance with the far-right. So it is most likely that the Grand Coalition (CDU plus SPD and the Greens) that European elites longed for will be formed.

But the impressive result of the AfD, surpassing 20% of the votes, marks a turning point. The far-right and anti-immigration party has not only managed to normalize its discourse but also inflicted the worst results in history on the left.

Its success is also a warning to globalism and a preview of what may end up happening in Spain in the not-too-distant future.

The difference is that in Germany the CDU rejects the far-right temptation, while in Spain "sanchismo" throws the PP into the arms of Vox. From this perspective, what has happened in Germany may hasten the replacement of Pedro Sánchez within the PSOE. If his government falls and the PP wins the elections comfortably like Merz in Germany, the pressure for a moderate center-right coalition will increase.

The Success of AfD Beyond the Results

But beyond the post-election agreements, the historic result of the AfD is in itself a shake-up to the European board. It represents a challenge to the benevolent policies imposed in the last two decades by bipartisanship. It also opens a rift in the European project of the bureaucratic establishment, allied with international globalism with the 2030 Agenda.

Alternative for Germany has based its success on denouncing illegal immigration in the midst of collapse. The chain of Islamist attacks and the blatant concealment by the media have done the rest.

But this party had already managed before the elections to drag the UCD to its positions. Even the SPD had shifted its discourse, with clear electoral purposes, supporting mass deportations.

As in France and many other countries, the success of the AfD goes beyond the results and has to do with the normalization of its proposals.

Although not everything is about immigration. The economic recession, high taxation, the degradation of public services, and the war in Ukraine have also marked the debate in these elections. Topics where the AfD has managed to highlight the exhaustion of the model defended in recent years by European elites.

AfD Breaks the Sanitary Cord

The unnatural alliance between the CDU and the SPD will maintain the political and media sanitary cord against the AfD. But Alice Weidel's party has achieved something even more relevant, which is to break the alternation in Germany.

With the refusal to negotiate with the AfD, Merz clearly draws a dividing line between the establishment parties and the popular alternative. If until now there was an alternation of the two major parties with the extremes as spectators, now one of these extremes becomes the alternative to the two major parties. And this substantially changes the rules of the game.

In Spain, Merz's decision may end up harming Feijóo and boosting Vox's voting expectations. Now Abascal will find it easier to accuse the PP of representing the same interests as the PSOE. And a possible alliance between PP and PSOE in the next elections may cause a transfer of votes from the center-right to Vox.

Germany has followed the same path as France, where the Macronist government allied with the far-left lives in permanent agony. Merz could also end up being dragged down by an increasingly irrelevant left. Which will continue to increase support for AfD.