The Alternative for Germany (AfD) won Sunday's state election in Saxony-Anhalt well ahead of the Christian Democrats, according to projections by public broadcasters ARD and ZDF. The party, classified as confirmed right-wing extremist by the state's domestic intelligence service, took between 44 and 44.5 percent of the vote. Whether that is enough for an absolute majority was not clear as results came in.
The Christian Democrats of state premier Sven Schulze finished a distant second on 18.5 percent. Three further parties cleared the five percent threshold: the Left Party on nine to 9.5 percent, the Greens on 8.5 to nine percent and the Social Democrats on eight to nine percent. The BSW sat on the edge at 4.8 to five percent, leaving its place in the chamber in doubt. The Free Democrats fell clearly short on two to 2.5 percent.
Applied to the 83-seat parliament in Magdeburg, the projections give the AfD 39 to 41 mandates. The Christian Democrats would hold 16 or 17 seats, the Left eight or nine, the Greens eight, the Social Democrats seven or eight, and the BSW possibly four.
Participation reached 80.0 percent according to ZDF, a historic high for the eastern state. The previous mark was 71.1 percent in 1998. At the last election on 6 June 2021, 60.3 percent of those eligible cast a ballot. Just under 1.7 million people were entitled to vote.
On this distribution the AfD does not reach an absolute majority. Every other party has ruled out working with it, and the Christian Democrats also exclude alliances with the Left Party on principle, so no combination delivers a coalition with a parliamentary majority. Should the AfD fall short, one arrangement appears both politically and arithmetically available: a minority government under Christian Democratic leadership, tolerated by the Left.
Whether the AfD reaches power may depend on the BSW, provided it enters parliament at all. The party leadership around founder Sahra Wagenknecht regards the so-called firewall against cooperation with the AfD as having failed. The BSW wants Schulze voted out and is arguing for a non-partisan minister-president governing with shifting majorities that involve the AfD. If the other parties decline to support that, the BSW says it would abstain in a third round of voting for minister-president, which could open the way for AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund.
Siegmund announced that he now wants to "extend a hand to all forces that want to bring about a fundamental policy change with us." The offer is open to anyone willing to join that turnaround, but it is not an offer to negotiate. He would not "bend" in order to achieve majorities, he said: "We will not abandon our fundamental position, which has brought Germany to where it is today, for any power options."
He named the conditions specifically. Migration, internal security and what he called "the crazy energy policy" are the areas where he says no movement is possible. These, in his words, are issues "that are non-negotiable." Any majority in Saxony-Anhalt, on his account, will have to be built around those positions rather than through them.
Siegmund, 35, said his party had made history. A former entrepreneur with a sharp undercut and a large social media following, he has been mobbed by supporters on the campaign trail, many of them wearing T-shirts bearing his likeness. He has often ridden the iconic local Simson bike, including to the polling booth on Sunday in his hometown of Tangermünde. Siegmund has ambitions to lead a political shift from Saxony-Anhalt that would carry the party to national victory in 2029.
The campaign drew on nostalgia for communist East Germany and on lasting resentment about the wealth gap with the west, decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Siegmund has been described as the friendly face of the AfD.
His campaign promises have been radical. They include a remigration and deportation offensive targeting irregular migrants from day one. The party's anti-woke agenda also covers replacing LGBTQ pride rainbow flags at public schools with the German standard, and changing the teaching of history to lessen the emphasis on the Third Reich.
To replace migrant workers, the AfD wants to draw German expatriates back and offer baby bonuses to families, with the aim of reversing population decline in a state of 2.1 million people. The German Economic Institute has warned that the party's immigration policy would be ruinous for Saxony-Anhalt, which relies heavily on foreign-born workers, especially in the health sector.
Others have voiced fears that a state security apparatus run by the AfD could leak sensitive information to Russia, material Moscow could use to destabilise Germany. Thuringia's state interior minister Georg Maier told the Handelsblatt daily that the Kremlin makes no secret of viewing the AfD as the most important instrument for destabilising Germany on behalf of President Vladimir Putin. The AfD has been described as Moscow-friendly, and its state branch carries the right-wing extremist classification from Germany's domestic intelligence agency.
A first state government led by the party would be a shock for many in Germany, a country that has worked to confront its history of the Second World War and the Holocaust and has so far kept extremist parties from power.
The prospect drew thousands of the party's opponents to a rally on Saturday in Magdeburg, the regional capital, carrying banners saying life is better without Nazis. Demonstrator Laura Saalfeld told AFP she was very worried, and said that whatever the results, the atmosphere would change and far-right sympathisers would show themselves more openly on the streets.
Federal chairwoman Alice Weidel told ZDF the outcome was a historic result and a clear mandate to govern. In what form the party would govern in Saxony-Anhalt, whether through toleration or a coalition, would simply have to emerge. She said the party's hand is always extended towards possible partners, while stressing that the state association is entirely independent of the federal party in its decision and has shown it is capable. She added that the party would go through the roof across eastern Germany and at federal level, and that the Christian Democrats would not win another election.
The result also increases pressure on Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has promised to restart a stagnant economy and restrict irregular immigration but has seen his party trail the AfD in national surveys. Political scientist Wolfgang Schroeder of Kassel University said that after a win in Saxony-Anhalt, critics of Merz would become more vocal and calls for better leadership would become impossible to ignore.
Attention now turns to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin, which both vote in two weeks. The AfD leads polling in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, though its lead over the Social Democrats has narrowed recently.
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