AfD wins big in German regional election, falls short of bid to become first far-right party to lead a state since WWII
Germany's Far-Right AfD Nears Historic First State Government in Saxony-Anhalt
Wertynews.com – In a result that reshapes the political landscape of postwar Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) captured the largest bloc of seats in the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament on Sunday, edging within striking distance of becoming the first far-right party to head a German state government since the end of World War II. The eastern state, home to roughly 2.1 million residents west of Berlin, delivered the AfD a commanding 43.8 percent of the vote — more than twenty times its share from the previous regional contest five years earlier.
Yet the party stopped three seats short of the absolute majority it needed to govern alone. Final tallies placed 39 AfD lawmakers in the 83-member chamber, leaving the party unable to command a full legislative majority without partners. That narrow shortfall sets up a tense constitutional question: can any combination of the fragmented opposition forces assemble a workable government without the AfD's participation?
The Candidate and the Mandate Claim
Ulrich Siegmund, the 35-year-old AfD nominee for state premier, declared the result a historic turning point. Speaking to public broadcaster ARD, he framed the vote as a verdict on the status quo.
"We have written history," Siegmund said, adding that voters had sent a signal that "things cannot carry on like this."
He went further, crediting Chancellor Friedrich Merz himself with boosting the AfD's campaign. "A very good campaigner for us in this election campaign was Friedrich Merz," Siegmund told ARD — a pointed jab at the center-right leader whose own party suffered a catastrophic collapse in the same ballot.
Siegmund ruled out what he called "games," specifically a minority government that would depend on shifting majorities. His stated top priorities include what he termed "a deportation offensive" and dismantling existing incentive structures for migrants, language that tracks the party's broader platform of what it calls "remigration" — a politically loaded shorthand for large-scale repatriation of immigrants.
The Coalition Math and the Firewall
The remaining seats split across five parties in a way that makes stable governance without the AfD exceedingly difficult. Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which has governed Saxony-Anhalt for 24 years, polled just 17.2 percent and won 15 seats — roughly half its previous support. The center-left Social Democrats took 9.3 percent and eight seats; the Greens, 8.9 percent and eight; the hard-left Left Party, 8.6 percent and eight; and the BSW list, which has publicly pledged not to elect either Siegmund or incumbent premier Sven Schulze while simultaneously criticizing the so-called "firewall" that bars mainstream parties from cooperating with the AfD, captured 5.3 percent and five seats.
Any attempt by Schulze to stitch together an anti-AfD alliance would require at least tacit backing from the Left Party — a formation with which the CDU formally refuses to build coalitions. That constraint makes the arithmetic of a workable government without the AfD look, at best, fragile.
National Fallout for Chancellor Merz
The result lands as a direct blow to Merz, whose center-right party has led the state for two decades and whose national government has yet to convince voters it can reignite Germany's sluggish economy. Turnout in the Saxony-Anhalt contest reached an unusually high 77.8 percent, suggesting the AfD attracted not only disaffected voters from rival parties but also many who had abstained entirely in the previous election.
Alice Weidel, the AfD's national co-leader, called the outcome "sensational" and extended an olive branch to potential coalition partners.
"Our hand is outstretched to all who want to make Saxony-Anhalt better and move Germany forward," Weidel said, signaling openness to attracting defectors from other formations.
Schulze, the incumbent premier, congratulated the AfD on becoming the state's strongest political force and acknowledged that "we as the CDU will also have to deal with this result," though he offered no specifics on how.
Franziska Hoppermann, national general secretary of the CDU, dug in against any relaxation of the firewall.
"AfD is a right-wing extremist party. It wants to leave the euro; that would be economic downfall … it works closely together with Russia, it wants a completely different social model," Hoppermann stated. "We will not work with them."
Extremism Designation and Historical Context
The Saxony-Anhalt branch of the AfD is among several regional chapters formally classified as a proven right-wing extremist organization by Germany's domestic intelligence service, which points to members' denigration of migrants from Muslim-majority countries and other conduct. In a neighboring state, an AfD leader has appealed two convictions for knowingly employing a Nazi-era slogan. The party rejects all such accusations as politically motivated.
The AfD is currently the largest opposition bloc in Germany's national parliament and draws its deepest support from the formerly communist, economically less prosperous eastern states. Its 13-year history has produced one prior state-level electoral victory — in neighboring Thuringia two years ago — where a CDU premier ultimately took power through a minority arrangement, though the AfD fell far further from a majority there than in Saxony-Anhalt.
Germany's 16 states wield substantial autonomous authority, including oversight of internal security and operation of the education system. A far-right state government, even a minority one, would represent a first in the republic's postwar history and would hand the AfD a permanent administrative platform from which to test its policies on migration, social welfare, and foreign alignment — policies that mainstream parties continue to describe as incompatible with the country's constitutional order and its European commitments.
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