Elections are coming and this time they are going to change the face of the world and Saxony. At least that’s what they write in the internet i guess. But somehow the narrative is repetitive. There were all or nothing elections to the european parliament where we didn’t get all or nothing and still are in this representative democracy. There were also federal elections in 2017 that were going to make the world a better place as long as AfD is not coming to power?
So the elections in September are coming. And they are promising a huge victory for AfD in the land. According to the poles from 02.07 they are now as big as CDU and have 26% (comparing to the previous 9,7% in 2014). This is a huge win for conservatives. Altogether right and extreme right (CDU, AFD, FDP) will have support of 57% if the poles are close to reality. Elections in 2014 had CDU with AFD around 50% giving a certain growth of conservative power if put aside the fact that those days NPD got their 4.9% and didn’t manage to pass into local parliament. FDP also lost quite heavily. If we sum up the loosers from that year we still get around 57% which looks quite the same on this side.
I guess the biggest problem we have today is migration of votes from CDU to AfD but this is also not so surprising if you look at the moves of CDU that were not satisfying conservatives in treating the refugee and migration questions. So at the end of the day shift to AFD is also making total sense as in last years CDU with soft migration policy lost to their more radical counterpart. Lost not only voters but some of their own candidates that moved from black to blue.
Strategic voting
To address the problem of migration of votes from CDU to AFD and prevent somehow rule of AFD in the land a lot of different groups are calling for strategic voting – vote for the strongest candidate that can fight AFD in the region.
The best example of strategic voting in Saxony was election of mayor in Goerlitz – candidates from die Linke and Green actually pulled out from election campaign and were agitation for voting for CDU candidate in the city. A lot of groups from different part of the left were calling to vote for CDU to prevent rule of AfD. The whole absurd went as far as slogans “Antifa heist CDU zu waehlen”.
The political campaign as well as program of the CDU candidate were not important in discussion. Agitation was based not on what was supposed to be done but rather on preventing AfD from happening. I believe this is at least weird if look at the last hundreds of years of political organizing in society for the political ideas were extremely important for support of the population.
CDU shouldn’t be a hero in this story – this party did extreme conservative politics in the BRD for generation. They are the ones who have kept the ground fertile for extreme right ideas to grow and expand and now they are starting to loose control over their own game of power, where their conservative politics are not enough anymore for the part of population they were feeding with right wing propaganda.
Now, doing strategic voting today is going to just postpone the inevitable crush of CDU or their shift further right. There is quite a huge chance if the CDU stays in power without coalition with AfD they are going to become AfD in the region trying to keep voters for themselves.
The example of Italy with coalition between Lega Nord and Five Star Movement showed that such coalitions between right wing parties are quite unstable as the votes are slowly shifting to more conservative side. It is highly possible if CDU and AfD goes into coalition it will be the death sentence to CDU in the region and AfD would become new CDU.
All in all the huge loss of CDU in Saxony will play a role on their policies not only in Saxony but in whole Germany dragging party more to the right in attempt to compete for AfD voters.
We still have to see what this strategic voting will bring to Goerlitz, but there is little hope about the positive parliamentary future for the Saxony. Well as anarchist i am not really surprised, however the possible participation of AfD in ruling of the region can potentially activate more people from the liberal camp to oppose conservative policies. This can lead to growth of progressive ideas in the society. For example attempt to pass police law from CDU-AfD coalition would cause way more protest inside of the region (at least we believe so) than the current “democratic” process that allowed the law to be passed with multiply violations.
It is not only die Linke and Greens that are calling for strategic voting. There are leftist groups doing that. Even some anarchists believe in strategic voting. For there is little believe not just in strategic voting but in representative democracy. At the end of the day those sitting in parliament do care little about what the population thinks, because if there is no social agenda from society than they are going to shape it. Unfortunately for us conservatives have a bigger say in society in Saxony, especially in rural areas and that’s why they can go quite far destroying the world.
To stop AfD from gaining power we can’t vote them out, we have to kick their power in society out. We have build our own social muscles that should prevent conservatives from entering into our communities and spreading their right wing poison. Local communities and society should hold the power over the future and not people sitting in the glass house next to Elbe or in Berlin!