Far Right Begins Coalition Talks to Govern German Region as Thousands Protest in Berlin

The AfD has begun sounding out potential partners after winning a historic victory in Saxony-Anhalt, an eastern German state where the far right is now three seats short of an outright majority. Thousands of people protested in Berlin against the result.

The party won about 44% of the vote, compared with 17% for the CDU, which had governed Saxony-Anhalt until the election. The result also represents a major setback for the conservatives who lead Germany nationally under Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

AfD regional leader Ulrich Siegmund, 35, has promised a tougher migration policy, an end to compulsory schooling and changes to the teaching of history. He says school curricula focus too heavily on Germany’s guilt for the crimes of the Third Reich.

The AfD could seek support from the CDU or rely on at least tacit backing from the pro-Russian left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW. The election has caused an earthquake in Germany, where no far-right party has governed a state since 1945 and where the memory of Nazi crimes remains deeply rooted.

The party’s breakthrough came in an impoverished eastern region that has drawn on nostalgia for communist East Germany and resentment over the wealth gap with the west, decades after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Merz acknowledged that the CDU had suffered its worst defeat in decades, saying, “A result like this, in this form, we did not expect.”

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A result like this, in this form, we did not expect.