Did the country leave away from justice? Is complicated.

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Most mornings, my husband Stefan and I have coffee in bed as we look at the news.
While opening Slate, New York Times and New York magazine, Stefan, who moved to New York in Berlin a year ago, scan the German newspapers and share with me the ascents and descents of the political situation back home. He is not only accidentally interested in German policy: he was a member of the Federal Parliament of Germany for several years and, before that, the Berlin State Government and worked in politics as a member of Die Linke, his left party, his entire adult life. The results of the elections in Germany last Sunday were, in a way, a relief-the far-right AFD partid did not predominate and will not be part of the government, and Die Linke came out stronger than many (thanks to The Tiktok star of the party)-but they reflected the wider European mood: Conservatism is increasing, and anti-immigration positions gain on voters, especially the elderly.

I always appreciate Stefan’s perspective on what was happening in Germany and I thought it would be useful to share his German choices with slate.

Allow me to start by asking you: What is taking over with big images for you, former member of the German Parliament and a member of Die Linke, from the results of the German elections? How should Americans understand the result?

Stefan Liebich: With the biggest participation of voters in 1987, the Germans changed their political landscape to the right, with a surprise at the other end of the spectrum. The Christian Democratic Union, the center-right party that the Americans can know from the moment Angela Merkel was his leader and Chancellor of Germany, won the elections with his Bavarian Sister Party, CSU. But it was the second most serious presentation in German history. And their leader, Friedrich Merz, is not really a friend of Merkel, to tell him easy.

The far-right alternative for Germany (AFD) came to second place, doubling its last time. The Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has lost a lot, their coalition partner The Greens Putin, and the other coalition partner, the Democratic Free Pro-Business Party (FDP), were even voted in Parliament. The left party had a surprisingly good result, with almost 9 percent and became the strongest party among young people and in the capital, Berlin. Therefore, most of the Germans wanted to see a movement to the right, but some opposed it.

East/West Split is always interesting for us. You grew up in East Germany, where the far-right AFD came to the top in almost every region of these elections. (Hooray for Leipzig and Berlin, where they didn’t do it!) Say it.

True. If you look at the political map now, you will see the exact borders of the former German Democratic Republic. But he is no longer a communist – they voted for the far right. If you look at wealth, employment, salaries, you would see these same borders, East Germany being much behind the West in all these areas. I do not think this is an excuse to vote away, but it can be a hint of why there is such an accentuated difference between these regions. But this is also important: even though the far -right AFD came the strongest with one third of the votes, two thirds did not vote for AFD in the east. The maps make him look awful, but there is a more nuanced story.

AFD will be represented in Bundestag, but will not be represented in the Government, which will probably be a CDU coalition, which has had the strongest show, along with SPD. Should we be relieved?

It is important that AFD – a party in which a leader used such an extremist language, that a judge decided that he could be called a fascist, without fear of a defamation costume, because such a description was a “judgment of Fact -based value ” – will not be part of a state or federal government. And even if the voices in CDU are increasingly opening and burning the “firewall” against collaboration with this party, CDU promises not to do so. On the other hand, they only voted with AFD for an anti-migration law. So who knows what Cdu will do in the future. It would be a relief to me to have a government that was predictable in its positions. But at this moment there is no majority for that

Your party, Die Linke, did well in the elections. As you said, “as in the good days of the past” when you were in Bundestag. How did that happen? And is there a takeover for American progressives in Die Linke’s earnings?

In fact, there is a takeover. Focus -focus, focus, -you! We, on the left, have so many problems in which we want to make the world a better place, that we tend to forget that we need a majority to do it. Therefore, we must focus on problems that most voters are interested. In Germany, these were high costs for dwellings and food prices. My party has even distributed an application in which people can check if their rent is too big and check if they can ask the owner to decrease it. This does not mean ignoring other important, or worse problems, throwing minorities or disadvantaged people under the bus. We should always be on the left. But to help them, you have to win first.

Ok, I almost finished. You have not been able to vote for these elections due to a screwing with the sending of absent votes. Now there is a legal challenge for the result of elections from the BSW party, which most US people have never heard, saying they would have reached the 5 % threshold to be represented in Parliament if the Germans from abroad could have voted. Can you explain what happens here? Do you think they will restore the choices?

Makes no sense to explain This party. It was just a personality project of a person. But the postal problem is real. Three to 4 million Germans live abroad and have the right to vote if they are registered. Over 200,000 people succeeded, but tens of thousands could not vote, because the ballots must be sent by mail to your address abroad and then back to the polling station. Many of us did not get our ballots over time; Mine came Friday, two days before the elections. So yes, there is a legal risk. But I do not think the Supreme Court would agree that there is any possibility that it will change the general result of the elections. However, I will talk to the new members of the Parliament to see if they can change the rules, so that we, the Germans from abroad can vote in the future.

Last question: You have lived in the US (with me!) For a year now and you are deeply employed in our political situation here. Do you think this country would be better with something more than a multi -party parliamentary system?

As we would say Germans: Da Schlagen Zwei Herzen in Meiner Brust. (There are two hearts that beat me in my chest.) First, the tents here are very large. You would find everything, from the Conservatory to the left in Democrats and everything, from Conservatives to Fascist in Republicans. In Germany you can vote for the political direction of your choice without buying everything. But here is the problem: after the elections, the parties form coalitions. And it could happen that the center-left party would form a coalition with the center-right party, and your vote goes in a completely different direction than you want, as will probably happen to many SPD voters now . So to be honest, you can lose in both systems.