The German far-right is disguising itself as a lamb to win elections. Alternative for Germany (AfD) has changed the recipe with an image of hope to break its electoral ceiling, a turn that has allowed it to win elections in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in just two weeks. The party has moved from the campaign slogan "Enough" from five years ago to "Everything is possible" and "Everything will be fine" in Saxony-Anhalt, a change in strategy with which the ultra-rightists move from a narrative denouncing the decline – which, in their view, Germany is experiencing – to selling optimism and enthusiasm. Fear and hope are combined in a perfect cocktail to reap electoral profit from the disenchantment that part of the population feels regarding the federal government of the traditional right-wing CDU and the social democrats of the SPD.

Without the necessary majority to govern, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is relying on defectors to come to power in Saxony-Anhalt. "I do not close the doors to anyone, I do not believe in sanitary cordons," said the party leader and election winner, Ulrich Siegmund, after an election in which the ultra-rightists came close to an absolute majority. Siegmund has already expressed his desire to forge a stable majority because governing as a minority would mean depending "on the mood of one deputy or another." Even so, he is calling on "individual actors who are willing to jump over their own shadow and who consider that the future of Saxony-Anhalt is more important than their own careers." Mind you, the condition set by the ultra-rightists is that their "basic positions are maintained."

The polls were already warning about it, and yesterday the results confirmed it resoundingly. The far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has swept the elections in Saxony-Anhalt and could end up governing if it finally achieves an absolute majority in seats – at the last minute it was at 44.6% with 95% of the vote counted – or if its potential partner, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) party, which for the moment exceeds the 5% threshold of votes that allows for representation in the regional Parliament, supports it or abstains in the vote. Be that as it may, what is clear is that it was voted for by an overwhelming majority of citizens of this federal state, one of the 16 into which Germany is divided and which has a population that just barely exceeds two million people. In fact, the first thing that has been surprising today is the spectacular increase in turnout, which exceeds 70%, more than ten points higher than that which occurred in the previous elections of 2021.