All of Europe Is Watching Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt’s election next Sunday has become a test of whether Germany’s political firewall can contain the Alternative for Germany, according to Georg Vetter’s guest commentary.

The commentary says Chancellor Friedrich Merz appears weakened and claims that, if polling proves accurate, the AfD could lift its share of the vote above 40%. That would represent a doubling of its result in the 2021 state election, while an outright majority of seats cannot be ruled out, it says.

Vetter argues that the AfD’s growing importance owes largely to the clumsiness of its opponents. He says political debate over the party’s policies is largely absent, while its opponents mainly brand it as far-right. The commentary points to a Spiegel cover describing the AfD’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt as “Germany’s most dangerous man.” The candidate distributed the cover as campaign advertising, and some journalists criticized the magazine’s exaggeration as helping the AfD.

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Germany’s most dangerous man

The piece says AfD voters come mainly from the CDU, whose economic positions it describes as closest to those of the AfD. It also notes that the AfD’s lead candidate was once a CDU member. Vetter links the shift to dissatisfaction among Union voters with their party’s coalitions with the Social Democrats.

The commentary warns that neither the firewall nor a proposed ban would necessarily stop the AfD. If the party won an absolute majority, it says, a ban debate could instead help it. It recalls the CDU and AfD-backed election of FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich as Thuringia’s premier in 2020, an outcome Angela Merkel called unforgivable. Kemmerich resigned, while Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court reprimanded Merkel. The piece concludes that the Union continues to defend the firewall, to the benefit of the SPD.

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The firewall is intended to signal to voters that every vote for the AfD is a wasted vote.