The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has achieved a significant electoral victory in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt. According to exit polls conducted for the ARD broadcaster on Sunday, the party secured 44.5 percent of the vote, more than doubling the 18.5 percent result for the incumbent centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Reflecting on the outcome, AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund declared, “We have achieved exactly what we wanted to achieve,” adding that the party has “made history in this state.” Co-leader Alice Weidel also characterized the result as historic, noting that it grants the party a clear mandate, though it remains unclear if they can successfully form a governing coalition.
The AfD has historically been excluded from power in Germany’s 16 states and the federal government due to a consensus among mainstream parties to maintain a “firewall” against the far-right. While the AfD appears to have narrowly missed an absolute majority in the Magdeburg state parliament, Siegmund stated he is open to working with parties interested in fundamental political transformation, provided they do not attempt to dictate terms to his party.
For the CDU, the result represents a major setback for Chancellor Merz, whose coalition government has faced declining popularity amid struggles to stimulate growth in Europe’s largest economy. State leader Sven Schulze is now looking to potentially assemble a multi-party coalition to prevent the AfD from taking office.
The AfD’s campaign successfully leveraged nostalgia for communist-era East Germany and deep-seated resentment regarding the economic disparity between the east and west. Siegmund, often seen riding his local Simson bike to connect with voters, has championed a radical platform. His proposals include a “remigration and deportation offensive” targeting undocumented migrants, replacing LGBTQ pride flags with the German standard, and revising history curricula to reduce the focus on the Third Reich.
To address the state’s shrinking population of 2.1 million, the party proposes luring back German expatriates and offering “baby bonuses” to families. However, critics warn these policies could be disastrous. The German Economic Institute has cautioned that the AfD’s immigration stance would be “ruinous” for a state heavily dependent on foreign-born labor, particularly within the healthcare sector.
Security concerns have also emerged regarding the party’s potential influence. Thuringia state interior minister Georg Maier recently told the Handelsblatt newspaper that the Kremlin views the AfD as its primary instrument for destabilizing Germany. There are growing fears that an AfD-led state security apparatus could compromise sensitive information, potentially aiding Russian efforts to undermine the nation. The report also notes that “The reality is the AfD has got the lion’s share of the votes in this election, according to the exit polls. The report also notes that but the question is: is it enough to get them control of the state. The report also notes that right now, we cannot say for sure,” reported Dominic Kane from Magdeburg in eastern Germany. The report also notes that as all other mainstream parties refuse to work with it, a policy infamously known as the “firewall”, the AfD has never participated in a ruling coalition in Germany’s 16 states nor its federal government. The report also notes that as well as lingering resentment about the enduring wealth gap with the west decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, afD has tapped into a sense of nostalgia for communist East Germany.