Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) has warned about the economic consequences of an AfD-led government in Saxony-Anhalt. "The state will suffer considerable damage if things turn out the way we now have to fear," Merz said on Sunday evening in the ARD "Sommerinterview". He warned specifically about a withdrawal of international investors.
"I cannot imagine that international investors would still turn up for a groundbreaking ceremony with an AfD state premier, in order to build new plants and establish new companies in Saxony-Anhalt," Merz said. "But that is a decision the voters in Saxony-Anhalt have to take."
His party would therefore "do everything to prevent exactly that" in the remaining days before the vote, said the chancellor and CDU leader. Merz noted that one week before the election "around 20 percent are still undecided", and that polls are not yet election results.
Saxony-Anhalt votes next Sunday. The AfD, classified as confirmed right-wing extremist by the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution, is well ahead in the polls and could be given the chance to form a government for the first time. Saxony-Anhalt is currently governed by the CDU together with the SPD and the FDP.
Merz also remained sceptical about launching proceedings to ban the AfD. He said he did not want to "close himself off" to demands "that at least the so-called völkisch part of the AfD should be banned". But in Germany, he added, the hurdles for banning a party are "very, very high".
"The federal government has already failed at this once," said the CDU leader, apparently referring to the unsuccessful ban proceedings against the far-right NPD. "The Federal Constitutional Court will take a long time to examine it. And I feel very uncomfortable at the thought of going into the 2029 federal election, for example, with ban proceedings against the AfD still under way."
"Banning a political party is always only a fallback solution," Merz stressed in a section of the interview in which he answered questions from the online community. "The best solution would be to fight successfully, by political means, against such extremism gaining ground."
Representatives of the SPD and the Greens had brought the launch of ban proceedings against the party back into the debate shortly before the vote. Federal Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) and Baden-Württemberg's Minister-President Cem Özdemir (Greens) called for such proceedings in particular against the most radical AfD state associations. The Greens' parliamentary business manager, Irene Mihalic, by contrast, considered ban proceedings against the AfD as a whole to be warranted.
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