German Right Gains Ground Ahead of February Parliament Elections

Across the Western world, right-wing parties saw numerous victories in 2024 as their popularity surged. This trend looks to continue in 2025 in the Feb. 23 German elections, as the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) continues to grow in popularity, although it is unlikely they will be in the governing coalition after the election.

In the latest poll taken Feb. 7-10 with 2,006 Germans by pollster INSA, the leading party was the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party from Bavaria, the Christian Social Union (CSU), polling at 30%. Behind them in second place was the AfD, polling at 22%.

Trailing the two right-leaning parties were the Social Democrats (SDP) at 15.5% and the Greens at 13%. Near the bottom of the polls were the Left at 6%, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) at 5.5%, and the Free Democrats (FDP) at 4%.

Although the two right-leaning parties will likely have more than enough seats for a majority, the CDU has said going into a coalition with the AfD is off the table. At the CDU party conference on Feb. 3, CDU Chairman Friedrich Merz said, “I can assure voters in Germany of one thing very clearly: We will not work with the party that calls itself the Alternative for Germany,” and later said that they want to make the AfD as small as possible.

Recently, however, the CDU came under fire from German liberals after Merz decided to push through a nonbinding motion to restrict asylum laws in Germany with the support of the AfD, Free Democrats, and BSW. This drew outrage as it was the first time the CDU had worked with the AfD to pass a bill that would not have passed without the AfD’s support. Liberal members of parliament rebuked the CDU for doing this, as it broke the “firewall” that the major parties had created with the AfD, vowing never to coalesce with them to pass legislation that didn’t have the support of other parties.

Despite Merz's reassurance that he would not create a coalition with the AfD, SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he no longer trusted the CDU on the issue of AfD cooperation. “After Mr. Merz broke his word, nobody can still trust that his word applies in the future on whether he would work with the AfD or not,” Scholz told German news agency DPA.

Since the CDU has eliminated the possibility of going into a coalition with the AfD, they will have to join a coalition with some of the other parties. Their most preferred option would be to join a coalition with the Social Democrats, as the CDU/CSU has done many times in the past, including under the recent leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

This coalition depends on exact election day results, primarily because the lower-polling parties will only have representation in parliament if they get more than 5% of the overall vote. This could be important because if all the smaller parties get just above 5% in the February elections, it will be harder for the CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats to form a coalition, as they are currently polling at around 45%. 

However, if two of the smaller parties receive less than 5%, it will be easier for those parties to earn a majority. If not, the CDU/CSU and SPD will have to add a third party to the coalition, which the CDU would not prefer as it would require additional concessions.

In any event, if the current slate of polls, which has the CDU at around 30% and the SPD at around 15%-16%, is even close to accurate, the next governing coalition will not look like the current coalition, composed of the Social Democrats, Free Democrats, and the Greens.

In the previous 2021 German federal elections, the SPD received 25.7%, the Free Democrats 11.4%, and the Greens 14.7%, totaling 50.8% – enough for a governing coalition. However, the 2024 European Parliament elections showed that the governing coalition had already fallen from grace, with the SPD dropping to only 14%, the Greens to 11.9%, and the FDP to just 5%.