Germany's democracy is in crisis - opinion

For decades after its reunification, Germany was presented as an exemplary democracy, which could serve as an inspiration to other countries – including old democracies such as the US and new democracies such as those that emerged in Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. Germany, through political, cultural, artistic, and private foundations, turned itself into the world’s “gatekeeper of democracy,” and by its self-attributed role, it preached democracy to other countries, including Israel.

The idea was simple: the Germans learned from their history and from two dictatorships – the Nazi one that ruled all of Germany for 12 years and the Communist one that ruled the East of the country for practically 44 years – and turned their country into a model democracy.

However, the results of the regional elections in Thuringia and Saxony refute two basic assumptions: the first – that the Germans are satisfied with the way their democracy is functioning; and the second – that the reunification between West and East Germany was successful. By voting for extreme right and left parties, many inhabitants of these two regional states have expressed their deep frustration on these two issues. Similar results are expected in the elections to be held in another eastern state, Brandenburg, later this month.

The two extreme parties, Alternative for Germany (AfD) on the right side and Alliance Zahra Wagenknecht (BSW) on the left, represent the widespread popular distrust in eastern Germany toward the political establishment as a whole and the established parties. These two parties are widely seen in eastern Germany as close to the people in contrast to the “established politicians,” who do not care or deal with the real problems of the Germans – primarily ongoing mass immigration, growing personal insecurity, and the deteriorating economic situation.

Moreover, these parties call themselves the peace parties in opposition to the German government’s support of Ukraine in its war with Russia and all the negative economic consequences for Germany and its citizens that resulted from this policy.

Pro and anti-war feelings

This positioning revived pro-Russian and anti-war feelings of the German Democratic Republic. BSW also added blatant anti-Israel messages to its campaign to mobilize the electorate that remained loyal to the policies of the former. The voters in the two eastern regional states sent a clear message to Berlin and western Germany: the situation in Germany cannot remain as it is. Deep changes must be made. Deporting a few dozen convicted “refugees” to Afghanistan will not solve Germany’s urgent problems, and these are not limited only to the issue of the open-borders policy in front of mass immigration.

The crisis of democracy in Germany should not surprise anyone. The warning bells have been sounding for years. Ignoring them deepened the crisis. When a growing number of citizens in a democratic country believe that the greatest danger to democracy in their country is that democracy is no longer a democracy, the inevitable result is the destruction of democracy by those at the top of the ruling pyramid.

Last January, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which is close to the ruling social-democratic party, published a study on “trust in democracy in times of crisis”. The results were alarming. According to this study, in 2023 the majority of Germans – 51.3%, were not satisfied with the functioning of democracy in their country (17.2% extremely dissatisfied), while 48.7% of Germans were satisfied. In this study, there was indeed a certain decrease in the overall percentage of those dissatisfied with the functioning of democracy in Germany, compared to a study conducted four years earlier.

At that time, 53.4% of all Germans were dissatisfied with the functioning of democracy in their country. However, in the new study, the percentage of people very dissatisfied with the functioning of democracy increased by 4%. Among the lower classes and the workers sector, 67.2% said they were not satisfied with the functioning of democracy. In the middle classes, the percentage of dissatisfied was 45.7%, and in the higher classes – 35.8%.

Among those with low education, 63.6% are not satisfied with the functioning of democracy, among those with average education – 54.3%, and among those with high education, 51%. These data indicated fairly widespread dissatisfaction with the functioning of democracy in various sectors and layers of German society and not a phenomenon that is limited only to an isolated part of the population. However, the great gap between East and West is well felt: 66% of the people of the East are not satisfied with the functioning of democracy, of which about 24% are very dissatisfied, while in the West dissatisfaction with the functioning of democracy stands at only 47.4%.

How can German democracy function better? The majority of Germans, 41.1%, are interested in a direct democracy such as exists in Switzerland, where the citizens decide through referendums what policy their government will implement. The most severe criticism of German governments over the last 15 years was that fateful decisions such as saving the Euro, opening the borders to mass immigration, COVID restrictions, and support for Ukraine were made without a popular mandate. 33.4% of the Germans are interested in a rule by experts. Only 24.5% want the representative democracy that exists today to stay. 1% supports the establishment of an autocratic regime.