Close, but not there: projections give the AfD 39 of the state parliament's 83 seats in Magdeburg, three short of an absolute majority. Whether the party can actually govern is now the question hanging over German politics.
"We Have Made History"
"We have achieved exactly what we wanted to achieve," said Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD's 35-year-old lead candidate, who rode an East German-made Simson Schwalbe motorbike to his polling station in Tangermünde. "We have made history in this state." Co-leader Alice Weidel hailed the result as historic, and national co-chair Tino Chrupalla declared that voters had rejected the "firewall," the mainstream parties' longstanding refusal to cooperate with the AfD. "The 'firewall' has been definitively rejected by the voters today," he told broadcaster ARD.
The arithmetic says otherwise, for now. The AfD has never governed at state or federal level, and every other party in the new parliament, the CDU (15 seats), SPD (8), Greens (8), the Left (8) and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (5), has traditionally refused to serve under it. Incumbent CDU premier Sven Schulze congratulated the AfD, admitted "we're going to have to live with this result," and later said he did not intend to cooperate with the party, though he initially avoided a direct answer on the firewall. Siegmund has raised the prospect of new elections if no majority can be formed.
A Blow to Merz
Merz made no statement on Sunday night, leaving CDU headquarters after 10 p.m. The result lands on a chancellor whose popularity has sagged as his coalition struggles to revive growth in Europe's largest economy, and it confirms the AfD's grip on the former East, where the party has tapped nostalgia, "Ossi pride" and resentment over the wealth gap that persists decades after the Berlin Wall fell.
Saxony-Anhalt's AfD branch is classified as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization by the state's domestic intelligence agency, a designation the party rejects as politically motivated.
What an AfD Program Would Mean
Siegmund, often described as the friendly face of the AfD, campaigned on a radical program: a "remigration and deportation offensive" against undocumented migrants from day one, replacing rainbow flags at public schools with the German flag, rewriting history teaching to reduce the emphasis on the Third Reich, and "baby bonuses" to reverse the shrinking population of the 2.1-million-person state.
The German Economic Institute has warned the party's immigration policy would be "ruinous" for a state heavily dependent on foreign-born workers, especially in healthcare. Security officials raise a darker concern: that an AfD-run state security apparatus could leak sensitive information to Moscow. The Kremlin "makes no secret of the fact that the AfD is the most important instrument for destabilising Germany for Putin," Thuringia's interior minister Georg Maier told Handelsblatt.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Did the AfD win the Saxony-Anhalt election?
- Yes. It took 43.8 percent of the vote in preliminary official results, the first outright state-election win for the far-right party and more than double the CDU's 17.2 percent.
- Can the AfD form a government?
- Not alone. It won 39 of 83 seats, three short of a majority, and every other party in the parliament has traditionally refused to cooperate with it. New elections are possible if no majority forms.
- What is the German "firewall"?
- The mainstream parties' policy of refusing any coalition or cooperation with the AfD, at state and federal level. The AfD says Sunday's vote rejected it; the CDU's state premier says he will not work with the party.
- Why does this result matter beyond Saxony-Anhalt?
- It is the closest a far-right party has come to leading a German state government since World War II, and another blow to Chancellor Merz, whose coalition is struggling in national polls.
