Expert on AfD victory: ‘A huge symbolic moment’

The AfD’s landslide victory in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt has made a major national impression, even though the state is one of Germany’s smaller federal regions. “It is a huge symbolic moment,” said Ann-Kristin Kölln, a political science professor at the University of Gothenburg, in comments to TT.

The party more than doubled its support and emerged as the clear largest party. Its state branch is classified as right-wing extremist by Germany’s domestic intelligence service. Kölln said the result gives the AfD additional legitimacy and shows that it has become a political force that cannot be ignored.

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It is a huge symbolic moment.

The result could also contribute to the party’s gradual normalization among wider sections of the electorate. “The more voters see a party being normalized by others, the more people begin to perceive it as normal,” Kölln said, adding that this happens gradually.

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The more voters see a party being normalized by others, the more people begin to perceive it as normal.

The election has left state-level coalition building highly uncertain. The left-conservative Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, narrowly cleared the threshold with 5.3 percent. The AfD did not win a majority of its own, and all traditional parties have considered cooperation with a far-right party unacceptable.

Even a coalition of all established parties would lack a majority, and such an alliance would itself be unlikely because the Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, has so far refused to work with Die Linke. The CDU finished second with 17.2 percent. A decision by the party to break the so-called firewall against the far right and enter a coalition with the AfD would be extraordinary. “I think that is completely unthinkable at present,” Kölln said.

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I think that is completely unthinkable at present.

A small opening may exist for cooperation between the AfD and BSW, which has not ruled out working with the far-right party and shares some programmatic similarities with it. But AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund told Deutsche Welle that BSW was “not part of the solution, but part of the problem.” Kölln said the national political debate in Germany had not yet moved far enough to bring the AfD into government, partly for historical reasons.

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Not part of the solution, but part of the problem.