Why in Czechia protest voters turn not to "Germany's AfD" but to the ANO movement

In the state elections in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party claimed victory, winning 43.8% of the vote. This state is considered one of Germany's poorest and oldest regions due to youth outmigration — and, according to political scientists, it closely resembles depressed regions of Czechia, such as the Ústí nad Labem or Ostrava areas. Yet Czech voters facing similar conditions tend to back more moderate forces rather than radicals.

Similar problems, different responses

Aleš Michal, a political scientist at Charles University's Faculty of Social Sciences, draws a comparison between Saxony-Anhalt and Czechia's troubled regions: both share an exodus of young people, severe economic deprivation, and a lack of major local hubs. But while German voters in such circumstances increasingly turn to the AfD — an organization the country's domestic intelligence service classifies as extremist — in comparable Czech regions it is the ANO movement, and to a lesser extent the SPD party, that dominates. Voters in these areas used to back left-wing forces — Social Democrats and Communists — but they have since turned away, feeling these parties no longer represent their interests.

According to Michal, the difference comes down to local specifics: in Germany, issues of migration and the east-west divide are felt far more acutely, whereas Czechia lacks such a sharp split.

It's not about ideology, but the lack of alternatives

Political scientist and extremism expert Jan Hartvich argues that the key factor is the absence of a moderate alternative to the traditional parties. In Germany, he says, disillusioned voters simply have no other choice besides the AfD, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or the post-communist Die Linke. In Czechia, by contrast, the ANO movement continues to offer voters an alternative to the establishment.

Hartvich is convinced that in theory, any party could have achieved a similar result — the AfD's success, he says, has less to do with ideology than with how compelling its political narrative is, even if that narrative doesn't fully reflect reality. Other parties, in his view, simply failed to come up with a sufficiently convincing response of their own.

Nostalgia for the past and attitudes toward Russia

Both experts point to the role of the communist past, though they interpret it differently. Michal speaks of German "Ostalgie" — an East German identity defined in opposition to the West — compounded by pro-Russian sentiment tied to cheap energy, long a cornerstone of the German economic model. In Czechia, he says, there is no comparably strong nostalgia; longing for the socialist era tends to rest mainly on economic arguments.

Hartvich, however, sees the bigger draw toward Russia not so much in the communist legacy as in economic hardship and a sense of being abandoned by the West and the central government — something he says applies just as much to Czechia's peripheral regions, where people feel they are worse off than others.

Both political scientists agree that a sharp rise of the far right is not expected in Czechia in the near future. Hartvich notes he doesn't see any party in the country capable of growing to the scale of the AfD: even the SPD, which is programmatically closest to the German radicals, has enough support only to hold onto its existing seats in parliament. Michal adds that the results of the most recent parliamentary elections show Czech voters are still seeking moderate protest through the ANO movement, rather than radical alternatives.

For comparison: in the Saxony-Anhalt election, the AfD failed to win an outright majority in the state parliament on its own. The Christian Democrats (CDU) came in second, losing 25 percentage points. The Social Democrats, the Greens, Die Linke, and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance also secured seats in the state legislature. In nationwide polls, the AfD likewise leads with 28% support, eight percentage points ahead of the coalition led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrats.

Source: seznamzpravy.cz