Saxony-Anhalt Election: BSW Will Talk to AfD, Says There Is “No Firewall”

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance will speak with the AfD after the Saxony-Anhalt election, its newly elected parliamentary leader Thomas Schulze said. “For us, there is no firewall. We will speak with all parties,” he said.

Schulze called the AfD the election winner after it received well over 40 percent of the vote. He also congratulated AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund. Asked whether he explicitly ruled out a coalition with the AfD, Schulze avoided giving a direct answer.

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For us, there is no firewall. We will speak with all parties.

“The current governing coalition has been voted out,” he said. “We have to accept that, and that is what we call democracy.”

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Whoever receives well over 40 percent is the election winner.

BSW deputy leader Claudia Wittig said the party would not enter coalition negotiations but would discuss specific projects. It planned to speak with every party about the positions it wanted to advance in Saxony-Anhalt. “One of the first projects will be the question of energy prices,” Wittig said.

All parties would have to work with the election result, whether they liked it or not, she said. “There is therefore no reason for drawing lines of separation, nor for calling new elections,” Wittig added, referring to calls that had already emerged for another vote.

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We are not entering coalition negotiations, we are talking about projects.

The BSW entered Saxony-Anhalt’s state parliament for the first time. Its presence means the AfD does not hold an absolute majority, making the formation of a government potentially complicated. The AfD, which the state’s domestic intelligence agency classifies as right-wing extremist, could reach power only if it found support. If three lawmakers from other parliamentary groups backed Siegmund, he could be elected minister-president in the first round.

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There is therefore no reason for drawing lines of separation, nor for calling new elections.