By Siena Cicarelli

This weekend, voters solidified a long-anticipated shakeup of the German government following a campaign season that focused largely on immigration and Germany’s sluggish economy. As expected, the vote shifted the balance of power sharply right from the left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD) coalition to the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). However, while the CDU came out on top with 28 percent of the vote, the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) won an unprecedented (but expected) ~21 percent of the vote. Therefore, the CDU must build a coalition with other mainstream parties to maintain the so-called “firewall” against the far-right.