Roughly six weeks before the state election in Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD continues to hold a clear lead over the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in a new poll. The party, classified by the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution as confirmed right-wing extremist, stands at 41 percent in the survey conducted by the Insa Institute for the magazine "Focus," published on Thursday evening.
The CDU, led by Minister President Sven Schulze, comes in at 24 percent. These figures are roughly in line with previous surveys. The other parties have also seen only minor shifts. The Left Party (Die Linke) polls at 14 percent in the current Insa survey, while the SPD stands at five percent, putting its return to parliament in doubt. The Greens, the FDP and the BSW currently fall below the five-percent hurdle, each polling at four percent. As things stand, none of them would re-enter parliament.
The state parliament in Magdeburg will be newly elected on September 6. The AfD is aiming for a single-party government and wants its lead candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, to become the first AfD state premier in Germany.
The CDU has ruled out coalitions with both the AfD and the Left Party. Should the AfD fall short of a parliamentary majority, the only conceivable option would be a CDU-led minority government, which would then depend on cooperation with parties including the Left Party. The survey polled 1,000 eligible voters in Saxony-Anhalt from July 14 to July 21.
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