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EXPERT COMMENT

Ulrich Siegmund’s highly successful campaign points to a more durable AfD electorate and flags the tests ahead for Chancellor Merz’s government, the CDU and the federal institutions that have shaped post-war German democracy.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD)’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt’s election is a historic breakthrough and, without doubt, a turning point in German democracy. Since 1945 no party labelled extreme right has secured such a win in a state election. 

The party won 43.8 per cent of the vote on 6 September, more than doubling its 2021 result. It now holds 39 of the state Landtag’s 83 seats, though this is three short of an absolute majority. The question of who will govern Magdeburg is therefore still open. 

BSW, the new party of former Die Linke (‘The Left’) leader Sahra Wagenknecht, succeeded in crossing the 5 per cent threshold. Its positions on migration are not that remote from those of the AfD in some respects. Its entry into the Landtag gives it a potential role in forming a government in Saxony-Anhalt. 

Beyond the political emotion, the result should be treated cautiously. Its main significance clearly lies in the way the AfD has mobilized voters and kindled a more positive political appeal. That may prove more consequential than whether the AfD manages to form a government. 

That said, Saxony-Anhalt is one of Germany’s least populated states, and the AfD’s victory should therefore be considered according to the demographic scale. If not a seismic political event, it can at least be interpreted as the forewarning tremor of an approaching earthquake – if the appeal of mainstream parties keeps eroding. The CDU, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party, saw its share of the vote fall to 17.2 per cent.

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