by Ronald Meinardus
With nearly 44% of the vote, the far-right Alternative for Germany has achieved the best result in its history. While the AfD narrowly missed an absolute majority, its sensational victory has broken one of the Federal Republic’s most important political taboos: parties that reject the liberal democratic order and relativize the crimes of National Socialism must be kept away from power.
The terms now dominating the German debate and international commentary—“turning point,” “political earthquake,” and “historic watershed”—are appropriate. The election result will transform politics in Saxony-Anhalt. What has happened in this eastern German state will also have repercussions for the federal government in Berlin and for Germany as a whole.
The governing CDU—Christian Democratic Union Party—suffered a historic defeat. The party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who had promised to halve the AfD’s support, has now seen its share of the vote cut in half, falling to just 17%. The Social Democrats, the Greens, and the Left remained stuck in single digits. The other winner was the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, which secured 5.3% and could now emerge as kingmaker. [BSW is a left-populist party, founded in 2024, that combines economically left-wing policies with socially conservative positions and a skeptical stance toward immigration and military support for Ukraine.]
Several factors explain the AfD’s success.
First, the vote was an expression of massive dissatisfaction with the CDU and, above all, with Chancellor Merz. Surveys published on election night show that his policies were supported by only 9% of voters in Saxony-Anhalt. The election was therefore also a referendum on the federal government. Its consequences will inevitably be felt in Berlin.
Second, the AfD ran a highly professional campaign. Its candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, presented himself as confident, approachable, and optimistic. Instead of relying exclusively on anger and protest, he offered voters the promise of a better future. The campaign slogan used in the final days before the vote—“Everything will be fine!”—was simple and effective.
Third, the AfD maintained a clear and uncompromising position on migration, the dominant issue of the campaign. Many of its proposals are unrealistic, and some of its promises will prove impossible to fulfill. After all, this was a regional election, and many important decisions are made at the federal level. Crucially, however, a significant proportion of the AfD’s electorate is not interested in facts or rational arguments. Many voters are driven by distrust of the established parties and by the conviction that the political system has ignored them for too long.
The immediate question is whether the AfD can translate its victory into power. It fell only three seats short of an absolute majority. According to reports, Siegmund is likely to pursue a three-stage strategy. He will first offer talks to the CDU, reigniting the debate over the political “firewall” against the far right. If this fails, he may try to persuade individual deputies from other parties, particularly the CDU, to defect. Finally, he could explore some form of cooperation with the BSW, which throughout the campaign showed greater openness than any other party to working with the extreme right.
For Chancellor Merz, the result is a humiliation bordering on a “political execution,” as one commentator in an Italian newspaper put it. Speculation about a change at the head of the government has already resurfaced and will not disappear. Yet the CDU lacks an obvious alternative. No successor of sufficient stature is in sight, and Friedrich Merz has given no indication that he is willing to step aside. Hendrik Wüst, the premier of North Rhine-Westphalia and a potential successor in some scenarios, faces an election of his own next spring and shows no inclination to move against the chancellor at this stage.
In first reactions, the CDU leadership insists that there will be no cooperation with extremists and no consequences for the chancellor. The coming days and weeks will show how realistic this position is. As became apparent on election night, the outcome in Saxony-Anhalt will also intensify internal resistance to the Federal government’s reform agenda, particularly its social and pension policies [such as raising the retirement age and encouraging work after retirement]. The SPD, the CDU’s coalition partner, is already demanding the withdrawal of disputed measures widely regarded as “unjust”—but which, in the chancellor’s view, are necessary to stabilize the system in the face of demographic decline.
“After the election is before the election,” as a German saying goes. Regional elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin are only two weeks away. Until then, the governing parties will try to avoid any decision that could cost them further votes. Meanwhile, the big winner in Saxony-Anhalt will press ahead with its aggressive campaign. “Our vision has become reality. We will take back the whole country,” a jubilant Ulrich Siegmund exclaimed at the end of an election that Germans will not soon forget.
Dr. Ronald Meinardus is a Senior Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). An earlier version of this article was first published in tovima.com.
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I am not sure this is all a bad development. Germany's federal system gives states like Saxony-Anhalt a great deal of latitude in governance. Although AfD ran a more professional campaign most far right parties are not really very good at governance. They may be able to cobble together a governing coalition but European coalitions (unlike American parties) are notoriously unstable and can shift like sand.
Further in some cases giving AfD the ability to overreach may give the rest of Germany an opportunity to see AfD mismanagement in real time. As long as the integrity of the German electoral system remains intact, as we saw in Hungary, AfD can be discarded or forced to moderate. Really the key to AfD's continued viability will be being able to govern effectively and efficiently.
To be honest, about half of AfD's platform would be acceptable to most libertarians although the other half would be a total deal breaker.
AfD's power seems to rest in areas of Germany associated with what was East Germany. Parts of Germany that have never enjoyed the economic vitality of the old West Germany. There seems to be a weird nostalgia for the safety and security that authoritarianism offers. A nostalgia for the good old days when the Soviets (and Putin himself) were actively running things. It would be interesting to see if the old East Germany is spiritually resurrected by a generation that never lived through those miserable years.
It depends on how this plays out in the rest of Germany where AfD (now) has less of an appeal.
How ironic, that the Saxony-Anhalt cohort, who lived under both their own fascism and Soviet socialism, have gone from the fire, into another fire, out of that fire (since 1989), yet now are seemingly trying to get back into the original fire.
It's a lack of generational memory of course. Institutional memory works a bit, at least. But you have to have the institutions. And it takes generations to build them, and even then they are not impervious to attack. Witness the Americans, who have had 250 years plus, compared to arguably a single Saxony-Anhalt generation (okay, two) since 1989.