Sahra Wagenknecht emerges as kingmaker in Saxony-Anhalt

After a tense election night, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance entered Saxony-Anhalt’s state parliament with 5.3 percent of the vote and five seats. The result gives the fledgling party the leverage to decide whether AfD leader Ulrich Siegmund can become minister-president.

The BSW narrowly missed the five-percent threshold in the federal election a year and a half ago and later failed with its legal challenge for a recount. In Saxony-Anhalt, however, party founder Sahra Wagenknecht openly presented the AfD as a potential partner during the campaign.

Wagenknecht has already issued a list of demands, including a change of course in energy policy, an end to sanctions against Russia, better education and a fundamental reform of public broadcasting. The article says the BSW and the far-right AfD share common ground on these issues, although not all of them fall under state authority.

The proposed route to an AfD-led government is straightforward: the BSW would abstain in the third round of the minister-president vote, allowing Siegmund to take office. Siegmund hopes for stable conditions and possible defectors from the CDU parliamentary group. He has also threatened a new election if necessary, though that would require a two-thirds majority.

No party other than the BSW plans to vote for the AfD candidate. Sven Schulze, Saxony-Anhalt’s outgoing CDU minister-president, will take his party into opposition. Meanwhile, the BSW has broken apart in Thuringia after a dispute with Wagenknecht. The state’s BSW lawmakers remain in the governing coalition under the new name “Thüringen. Gerecht.”

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Now there will hopefully be majorities in the Magdeburg state parliament for a change of course in energy policy, an end to sanctions against Russia, better education and a fundamental reform of public broadcasting.