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ABSTRACT: In the 2017 German Federal Election. The Left Party (Die Linke, or LP) saw its vote share in eastern Germany seriously erode. The main culprit behind the LP's losses was the Alternative for Germany (AfD): 430,000 voters who cast their ballots for the LP in 2013 voted for the AfD in 2017. Why was this the case? This article suggests that the AfD in 2017 was able to attract protest voters, largely in eastern Germany, dissatisfied with the state of democracy and the political establishment in Germany who once voted for the LP. The LP and AfD have become eastern German populist competitors.
KEYWORDS: 2017 German Federal Election, AfD, eastern Germany, Left Party, populism, voters
Аs is evident in the articles in this special issue, several main narratives developed following the 2017 German national election. The main headline, of course, was the Alternative for Germany's (AfD) precedent-shattering election performance. Not only did a populist radical right party gained representation in the Bundestag for the first time in Germany's postwar history, the AfD's 12.6 percent of the vote placed it as the third largest party in parliament and-given the Social Democratic Party's (spd) decision to enter another grand coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (cDU)-the largest opposition party. Another central narrative was the fall in fortunes of the CDU and Merkel. Despite retaining its status as the largest parliamentary group with Merkel returning as chancellor, the Union plummeted to 33 percent of the vote, down 8.5 percent from its 2013 total. A third headline was the disastrous result of the SPD. The party's 20.5 percent was an historical low, and the SPD immediately announced it would go into the opposition to lick its wounds-reversing this decision a few months later and endorsing a new coalition with Merkel in March 2018. Finally, the reemergence of the FDP was another, if more muted, narrative of the 2017 election. With 10.7 percent, the Liberals rebounded strongly from their terrible election performance of 2013, consequently displaying a newfound assertiveness in coalition negotiations with the Union, even going so far as to withdraw from exploratory talks with the Greens and CDU in November 2017.
Barely registering on the postelection radar screen was the result for the Left...