On February 23, 2025, the 21st Bundestag (federal election) took place with the highest voter turnout in 40 years, with over 80 percent of eligible voters participating. The highest turnout was in 1987 with 82.5 percent. For reference, 59 percent of age-eligible U.S. voters showed up to polls in 2024, and 63 percent in Canada’s 2021 election. The main reason for such high numbers in Germany is due to media movements and vast differences in political views across different ages and geographic locations.
Unlike national elections in North America, where political parties are generally divided between left and right, with an arguably insignificant middle or green party, Germany’s parties are more complex. LINKE is the far left party, with democratic socialist views. In the 2025 election, 8.8 percent of voters picked LINKE. Both the GRÜNE (green) and SPD (social democratic party) are known as centre-left with social democracy, liberalism, and a pro-European Union outlook. GRÜNE accounted for 11.6 percent of voters and SPD 16.6 percent. CDU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany) and CSU (Christian Social Union of Bavaria) are a centre-right union with CSU representing the state of Bavaria and CDU representing the rest of the German states. Together, these parties won the election with 28.6 percent. Finally, the AfD (alternative for Germany) is associated with isolationist views, including Euroscepticism (criticism of the EU) and German nationalism. They accumulated 20.8 percent of votes, placing the AfD as the second-closest to winning the election.
Due to GRÜNE’s performance below the projected 12 percent, Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck stepped down from his role. Meanwhile, LINKE’s outcome far exceeded expectations, due to a viral speech against the AfD by LINKE’s co-chair, Heidi Reichin, gaining her several million TikTok views and 580,000 followers since publishing her speech. With the AfD’s extremist views, many Germans feared that they would prevail in the Bundestag. In fact, AfD leader Alice Weidel had the largest influence on social media, drawing in over 935,000 new TikTok followers, despite controversial comments such as “When we are at the helm, we will tear down all wind turbines. Down with these windmills of shame!” Among 18–24 year old voters, the votes were very divided between right and left, 24 percent voted LINKE and 21 percent for AfD. Despite AfD’s overall loss, the party is still a looming threat with foreign ties. Elon Musk personally called Weidel to congratulate her and the performance of AfD with a close second place in the results. Quoting Weidel as the “best hope for the future,” Musk is likely to form a sponsorship and send massive funding to the AfD.
Looking ahead, the next Bundeskanzler (chancellor of Germany) will likely be Friedrich Merz. Merz has voiced many controversial opinions such as voting against the illegalization of rape in marriage and against legal abortions. Furthermore, there was a voting in the Parliament this year for more rejections at the border proposed by the CDU which was only able to get the majority because of the AfD. Adding to the controversy, the AfD now also made the term “Remigration” socially acceptable again even though it is mostly used by right extremists, parties like the CDU and SPD support the negative view of refugees and immigrants. Remigration is the act of sending non-white immigrants back to their native country from Europe.
Germany is one of many countries currently experiencing a rise in conservatism, in addition to the U.S., France, Belgium, Portugal, and Austria, among others.
