How the Far-Right AfD Is Causing a Political Earthquake in Germany

The AfD did not win automatic control of Saxony-Anhalt, but its result shook Germany’s political system. The far-right party won 43.8% of the vote in Sunday’s state election, its best result in any contest during its 13-year history.

The performance more than doubled the party’s share from the 2021 state election. It also delivered a major setback to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union. The CDU won 17.2%, down from 37.1% in the previous election, and now trails the AfD by more than 26 percentage points after leading every Saxony-Anhalt state government since 2002.

The AfD’s 39 seats in the new 83-member state parliament leave its lead candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, three seats short of the 42 needed for an absolute majority. Had the party won another one or two percentage points, it might have secured the majority required to choose the state’s leader and administration.

That shortfall leaves coalition arithmetic at the center of the next stage. The CDU and other parties that won substantial support have categorically rejected a coalition with the AfD. Germany’s long-standing political firewall is intended to keep a party regarded as extremist out of government.

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance won 5.3% and five seats. It has also ruled out a formal coalition with the AfD, although the article says the left-wing populist party could still be positioned to test the firewall in Saxony-Anhalt. The election therefore leaves the AfD short of power, but far from politically marginal.