The extreme right sweeps in Saxony-Anhalt and may end up governing

BarcelonaThe far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has swept the elections in the eastern federal state of Saxony-Anhalt, where it has remained at the gates of an absolute majority. The AfD has obtained 43.8% of the votes, more than double that of 2021 (20.8%) and only three seats away from being able to govern alone.

The Christian Democrats of the CDU of Chancellor Merz, led by the current minister-president of the state, Sven Schulze, have suffered a resounding defeat: 17.2% of the votes, less than half the support it obtained in the previous elections (37.1%), meaning they go from 40 to 16 deputies. The leader of the conservative party arrived at the elections with the hope of being able to revalidate the position if he managed to reach an agreement with enough parties by virtue of the brandmauer, the cordon sanitaire that until now has prevented the ultras from reaching any position of power. But the extraordinary result of the AfD puts this possibility even more in doubt.

The key may be held by the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) party, which has entered Parliament with 5.3% of the votes. This formation—a party considered far-left with a very tough stance regarding immigration and a pro-Russian tendency—is the only one that has shown itself open to cooperating with the AfD, although it is not clear if it would give its yes to an investiture vote in favor of the AfD candidate, Ulrich Siegmund.

With this result, the AfD will have 39 seats in a chamber of 83 deputies. If it ends up obtaining the support (or abstention) of the BSW, it will be the first time since Nazism that a far-right party returns to power in Germany. "We have made history; we will take back our country," celebrated the AfD candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, who has extended his hand to "all democratic forces that want to make better policies" and has stressed that issues such as immigration and national security are non-negotiable. His main rival, the leader of the CDU, congratulated him and said that the party will have to face this result, "also beyond" the state.

Siegmund, the AfD's lead candidate, wanted to show his closeness to Elon Musk in a message on X: "I appreciate your support and your clear and very important perspective on the political evolution of our time". And he showed himself open "with great pleasure to the opportunity for a solid and constructive cooperation". Musk had congratulated the party leader, Alice Weidel, in a tweet for the provisional results. Before that, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, had posted a screenshot of the election projection on his Truth Social profile without making any comment. The Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev took a screenshot of Trump's post and also celebrated a "historic victory for the pragmatic AfD". The AfD is pro-Kremlin, demands that support for Ukraine be stopped, and advocates that Ukrainians stop having refugee status.

Perspective in Berlin

The good results for the AfD in this region could be repeated on September 20 at the state elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, both also in the east of the country. This would put the federal government, led by the increasingly unpopular Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz, in an even more difficult situation. Lars Klingbeil, co-leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and vice-chancellor of Merz's governing coalition, has stated that this Sunday's results are a signal for the federal executive, while the chancellor remains silent.

The AfD's national co-leader, Alice Weidel, has considered the results as "a clear mandate to govern" and said they are willing to talk with any "reasonable" party. The party already made history in September 2024, when it came in first in the Thuringia state election –headed by the party's most ultra leader, Björn Höcke, convicted twice for making Nazi proclamations in public–, with 33% of the votes, ten points ahead of the CDU. In the last federal elections, in February 2023, the AfD obtained 20% of the votes, the second most voted party. Until now, however, the radical party has only managed to win four mayoralties in small municipalities, and the strategy of the cordon sanitaire has generally prevailed.

The nostalgia for a past not lived

Siegmund has exploited the nostalgia from before the reunification of the two Germanys, even though he did not live through it. The AfD has seized upon what is known as the Vespa of East Germany, the Simson brand, with which the party leader in Saxony-Anhalt was seen during the campaign. With this, he wanted to reinforce the sense of identity of East Germans and strengthen the feeling of grievance and structural disadvantage compared to those in the West. Although East Germany has largely recovered its standard of living, many young people still express concerns about financial security and inequality of opportunity. And the AfD has taken advantage of this to capture the youth vote: in the 2025 federal elections, voters in this state between 18 and 34 years old reached 40%, compared to 25% in the previous elections.

The state governments have significant powers in areas such as education and culture. And the AfD of Saxony-Anhalt –one of the branches of the party that German security services have classified as a far-right organization– proposes a change in schools and cultural institutions to reinforce conservative values –in favor of "normal families" with a father and mother– and marginalize immigrants, for example, by segregating refugee children into special classes. In the event that it ends up governing, the AfD has said it will ban rainbow flags in schools, which will be replaced by the German national flag, which will be hoisted every day.

Concern about a landslide victory for the ultra party also stems from the fact that it is one of the parties closest to the Kremlin in Europe. German security services have warned that disinformation campaigns promoted by Russia against AfD rivals have increased.

Setback for the CDU and the liberals

The party that has been left out of Parliament is the liberal FDP, the current governing partner of the CDU in this state, which did not exceed 2.6% of the votes. The Social Democrats of the SPD, the third pillar of the current regional coalition, have registered a slight improvement, with 9.3% support. But the loss of one of the partners makes things even more difficult for the Christian Democrat leader if he wants to try to form a government alternative to that of the far right. With the FDP out of the equation, only the Social Democrats and the Greens (8.9%) remain, because the CDU has refused to make a pact with The Left (8.6%), which it considers far-left.

Even if there were some option for the CDU, reaching an agreement with The Left would not be an easy task. The party leader and chancellor candidate himself, Friedrich Merz, maintained his rejection of the left-wing party this week: "Both the AfD and The Left have such significant differences with the CDU that cooperation with them is out of the question," he told the newspaper Mitteldeutsche Zeitung. This leaves practically only one option if one wants to prevent the AfD from governing: that of a three-party minority executive, with the occasional external support of The Left, the current model in the states of Thuringia and Saxony.

With the preliminary results, however, neither the AfD on its own (39 seats) nor a possible coalition of the CDU, the Greens, the SPD, and The Left (40) would have any chance of electing a minister-president in a first or second round of voting. In the third round, however, the state constitution stipulates that abstentions are not counted and that only the majority of the votes cast decide the election of the head of government. This means that an abstention by the BSW in the third round could lead to the investiture of Ulrich Siegmund or the re-election of Sven Schulze.