Far right set to make electoral gains in Germany’s most populous state

Stay informed with free updates

Simply sign up to the German politics myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

Alternative for Germany is set to make strong gains in local elections that underlined the far right party’s advance in Germany’s western industrial heartland and presented the first poll test for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition government.

According to early estimates released by state broadcaster WDR on Sunday, AfD secured about 15 per cent of the votes in municipal elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous federal state, up from 5 per cent in 2020.

AfD, which is co-led by Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, became the second-largest party in parliament in federal elections in February after obtaining a record 21 per cent vote share, including strong results in the country’s former communist east.

But in recent years, AfD has also drawn support from voters in the western Ruhr region, an area that has witnessed high immigration and struggled with deindustrialisation.

In local elections on Sunday in North Rhine-Westphalia, AfD’s surge came at the expense of Merz’s junior coalition partner, the centre-left Social Democrats.

The SPD was projected to secure 22 per cent of the vote, according to early estimates, which would represent slippage of two percentage points compared with elections in 2020. The Green party was also set to lose ground, falling 7 points to 13 per cent.

Merz’s centre-right Christian Democrats took solace in the fact the party was able to maintain its leading place in the western state, with a 34 per cent vote share. That result would be unchanged on 2020.

Hendrik Wüst, the 50-year-old CDU state premier in North Rhine-Westphalia, said he was “grateful” that voters had kept the party in the lead.

But he acknowledged the AfD’s strong showing in traditional SPD industrial strongholds posed difficult questions for the centre-left and centre-right parties over issues including migration and welfare benefits.

“Everyone will ask themselves what are the right answers in terms of poverty, migration? Are all parts of our social systems really fair?” he told national broadcaster ARD.

Despite relaxing Germany’s debt brake and unveiling a massive €1tn spending plan for defence and infrastructure, Merz has been grappling with low public approval ratings and frustration among business leaders as the Eurozone’s largest economy continues to stagnate.

Merz has promised an “autumn of reforms”, vowing to overhaul welfare benefits and the pension system by allowing workers to continue working beyond the country’s retirement age.

But tensions inside Merz’s coalition, and the SPD’s poor electoral results in North Rhine-Westphalia, may make it harder to push through ambitious reforms.