What is at stake in Germany’s state election? It could become the AfD’s testing ground

For the first time since the end of World War II, a far-right party could take power in a German state. Sunday’s election in Saxony-Anhalt could give the AfD its first chance to lead a state government in the Federal Republic.

The party, led in the state by Ulrich Siegmund, is polling at just over 40 percent. That would represent its best state election result, but an outright majority appears unlikely. Much will depend on how the other parties respond.

The conservative Christian Democrats, or CDU, currently run Saxony-Anhalt. State premier Sven Schultze, who also leads the party locally, has ruled out cooperation with the AfD. He has also rejected working with Die Linke, Germany’s equivalent of the Left Party. Without either party, however, a majority does not appear possible.

Another potential factor is the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW. The party combines left-wing economic policies with nationalism and closed borders. It is polling at 4 percent, below the 5 percent threshold required to enter German state parliaments. Its founder and national chairwoman, Sahra Wagenknecht, has said she wants to “talk to all parties,” while also demanding that Schultze’s government resign.

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talk to all parties

Saxony-Anhalt is one of five former East German states that joined Germany after reunification in 1991. Many jobs disappeared during the dismantling of the planned economy, and the state now has Germany’s lowest GDP per capita. The AfD has also ruled out cooperation with the parties it labels the “cartel parties.”

Critics say the vote could serve as a testing ground for the AfD’s attempt to eventually take power across Germany. “How far can you actually go to run over the written, and perhaps more importantly the unwritten, rules of democratic culture in a state?” David Begrich of Miteinander, an organization opposing right-wing extremism in Saxony-Anhalt, told DW.

If the AfD receives the mandate to form the state government, it has promised a regional repatriation campaign, separate classes for refugees and a ban on rainbow flags in schools. Siegmund has also said history lessons should focus more on Otto von Bismarck, whom he called one of Germany’s founders, than on Adolf Hitler.

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How far can you actually go to run over the written, and perhaps more importantly the unwritten, rules of democratic culture in a state?