East German Voters Complicate Merz Plan to Boost Ukraine Defense

Yahoo

01-03-2025

(Bloomberg) -- Christian Görke isn't against Germany easing its borrowing rules, he just doesn't want 'a pure economic stimulus for the arms industry.' The veteran Left Party lawmaker is part of a new class of parliamentarians that will arrive in the Bundestag next month to form a powerful opposition against incoming Christian Democratic chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Cuts to Section 8 Housing Assistance Loom Amid HUD Uncertainty
The Trump Administration Takes Aim at Transportation Research
Shelters Await Billions in Federal Money for Homelessness Providers
NYC Office Buildings See Resurgence as Investors Pile Into Bonds
NYC's Congestion Pricing Pulls In $48.6 Million in First Month
Merz ran on a promise to invest more in defense. To do that, he'll likely need to change Germany's constitutional limits on borrowing, only possible with a two-thirds majority vote in parliament. But the Left Party, along with the far-right AfD, are adamantly opposed to increasing military spending in support of Ukraine. Combined they have 216 out of a total of 630 seats.
To sidestep this obstacle, the conservatives could try to team up with other parties and force a vote before March 25, when the new legislature assembles for the first time. While legally sound, the move could further alienate voters in the east, where parties opposed to greater spending on Ukraine's defense won more than half of all votes.
Last Sunday's election was a stark reminder of a growing ideological divide in German politics. Even if the next government manages to loosen borrowing limits, other challenges loom. A failure to address deep economic problems and fears of migration could further fracture the electorate. That could drive support to the AfD, which is under government surveillance for suspected anti-democratic activity, and bring Germany's entire political system to a breaking point.
Ronny Reinecke is among the voters in the former East who supported the AfD, which won the biggest share of any party in the region with more than 30%. 'Social conditions simply do not allow for anything else,' he said of his vote. The 42-year-old has been searching in vain for steady work and an apartment in Rathenow, a small eastern town an hour outside Berlin, since losing his job more than a year ago.
'As no landlord wants to give an apartment to a welfare recipient, I have to live in a homeless shelter,' he said. He shares a room with a Syrian refugee who he communicates with via a translation app. 'We get along well,' he said.
A mix of factors is behind the rise in fringe parties. Incomes in former GDR states are lower than in the west. While the east has experienced significant gains since reunification, left-behind regions are more concentrated in this part of the country, and many people still feel as if they're second-class citizens.
That's exacerbated by the fact that former East Germans are less aligned with the West than people in other parts of the country, especially when it comes to migration and the war in Ukraine.
'People in East Germany, who were differently conditioned until 1990, perceive these issues differently,' says Kai Berger, an AfD lawmaker in the Brandenburg state parliament. 'They don't feel represented by mainstream parties anymore.'
Research also shows that although anti-migration sentiment exists across Germany, it runs deeper in the east. Nearly half of people there fully agreed with the statement that 'foreigners only come here to take advantage of our welfare state,' according to a prominent study on authoritarianism, compared to 30% in the west. Furthermore, said Maximilian Kreter, a researcher at the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarian Studies in Dresden, mainstream parties were better able to attract voters in the west who were inclined to support far-right parties. In that part of the country, he said, 'the CDU covered the spectrum from the right to the far-right.'
While they trailed the AfD, the Left and the populist left-wing BSW also gained traction in former East Germany. These parties differ in key ways, but all support maintaining strong ties with Russia and reject boosting military spending.
Sarah Pagung, a Russia expert at the Körber Foundation, attributes support for those views to a mix of economic frustration and skepticism towards foreign policy spending. However, she added, perhaps the most important factor is 'great dissatisfaction with the political system itself.' Because Germany's mainstream parties are broadly in agreement over Ukraine, she said, supporting a fringe party 'offers an opportunity to make dissent with the political system highly visible.'
That was apparent in Rathenow, where the AfD received 35% of the vote, and the Left secured 11.7%.
At the Left party office, local representative Thomas Lotsch showed off leftover goody bags filled with branded balloons, flyers and condoms. While he struggled in previous years to hand out just 50, this election season people took more than 250 in under two hours.
'We had a fantastic inflow of new and also young members,' said Lotsch. 'What helped was that we had a clear position this time: clearly against the shift to the right, and clearly against any further weapons supplies.'
While a significant share of easterners still oppose the Left for its close ties to Russia – a country East Germans viewed as an oppressor — those dynamics are changing. Younger people were more likely to vote for a fringe party, and should centrist parties force a vote on defense funding through the outgoing parliament, that could drive even more support to the periphery. The idea of a vote is 'unbelievable,' said Berger, the AfD politician. 'It's a rip-off for the voters.'
Construction worker Dino Pfitzer has already been alienated by the government's position on Ukraine. The former soldier served as a sergeant major for four years, but he would never return to the army because he refuses to fight against Moscow. Rather than go to war with the Russians, the AfD voter said, 'I would rather greet them with bacon and vodka.'
--With assistance from Jana Randow and Tom Fevrier.
Rich People Are Firing a Cash Cannon at the US Economy—But at What Cost?
Trump's SALT Tax Promise Hinges on an Obscure Loophole
Warner Bros. Movie Heads Are Burning Cash, and Their Boss Is Losing Patience
Walmart Wants to Be Something for Everyone in a Divided America
China Learned to Embrace What the US Forgot: The Virtues of Creative Destruction
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.