Anna-Lena Laurén: AfD victory in Saxony-Anhalt alarms Germany

The most telling figure in Saxony-Anhalt’s election is not simply that the far-right AfD appears set to win 44 percent. It is that the party has achieved its best-ever result in an election with record turnout, above 80 percent.

The eastern German state has not seen participation that high since reunification. In the previous state election, in 2021, turnout stood at 60.3 percent. The AfD won by bringing nonvoters to the polls, the commentary says. While the result was expected, the party’s proximity to an outright majority has shocked Germany.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz, deeply unpopular in Saxony-Anhalt, kept a low profile during the campaign deliberately because his presence was seen as a burden. Merz once promised to halve support for the AfD. When a television interviewer recently asked him about that pledge, he responded irritably that times had changed.

Merz and the Christian Democratic leadership now face an extremely difficult situation. The result applies only to one state, but it gives the AfD major momentum ahead of the next state election in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on September 20, where the party also leads opinion polls with 35 percent. The CDU could not even claim an honorable defeat. Exit polls put it at 18.5 percent.

At the CDU’s election event in Magdeburg, the party’s Bundestag member Sepp Müller refused to comment after the exit polls appeared and quickly left the room. Many people in the state capital remain worried, particularly residents with immigrant backgrounds. “I can probably live with the AfD in power, there are surely good people there too. But it depends on what they intend to do,” said Ali, a taxi driver. Foreign journalists had struggled to enter the AfD’s election event, so many went instead to the defeated CDU’s gathering.

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I can probably live with the AfD in power, there are surely good people there too. But it depends on what they intend to do.