The AfD Saxony-Anhalt election win has left the far-right party within reach of governing a German state for the first time since World War Two, after preliminary results gave it 43.8% of the vote but fell three seats short of an outright majority in Sunday’s poll.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is now heading for 39 seats in the 83-seat state parliament, according to preliminary figures. The party needs 42 seats for an outright majority and is seeking support from other parties or individuals to form a government.
The AfD’s deputy parliamentary leader, Beatrix von Storch, told the BBC the party was “very, very close” to taking power, and called on opponents to enter talks. “You cannot say I do not accept the vote of the people,” she said. “This is what democracy demands.”
AfD Saxony-Anhalt election win triggers CDU collapse
Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he was “deeply shocked” by the result. He described it as “seismic… not just in the country but also in my own political party and I take that very seriously.” His party, the conservative CDU, saw its share of the vote almost halved to 17.2% in the state’s preliminary results.
Merz said it was not possible to return to “business as usual”, adding that the country needed “profound reforms” and that the CDU needed to “reach people at an emotional level”.
The state’s defeated premier, the CDU’s Sven Schulze, acknowledged that the mandate to govern Saxony-Anhalt “now lies with the AfD”.
The AfD’s leader in Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, told a news conference on Monday that the party had won a “clear mandate to govern” and said discussions with other parties had been initiated on Sunday night. Talks could potentially take days or weeks to conclude, he said. “We reach out to everybody first, we will have consultations and then we’ll see whether individual parliamentary groups or MPs would be willing to help us,” Siegmund added.
Coalition options and the role of the BSW
Almost all German parties refuse to co-operate with the AfD. One idea being floated is an informal arrangement whereby the left-wing populist BSW, which is set to win five seats, could give tacit support to allow the AfD to form a minority government. The BSW is also tough on migration and backs importing Russian gas.
Von Storch said the AfD was also speaking to individuals within the CDU group because they were “very, very unhappy with their own party”. She warned that if parties refused to work with the AfD, “we might end up in severe chaos and maybe we have a new election”.
One party will play no part in those negotiations at all. According to the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, the FDP failed to clear the five-percent threshold and will no longer be represented in the state parliament.
Saxony-Anhalt has a population of 2.1 million. The AfD in the state is assessed by domestic intelligence as “right-wing extremist”, a classification rejected by Siegmund. Governing at state level would mean powers over policing and local education. No far-right party has controlled a German state since World War Two.
The party’s plans for the state, which include segregating child refugees into special classes and setting up a task-force to help detain and deport migrants, are highly controversial within Germany. Among the AfD’s broader policies is a plan for “remigration”, which is widely understood to mean mass deportations of migrants, although the party says it refers to deporting criminals and those in the country illegally.
On Sunday, US President Donald Trump posted a screenshot of the state’s projected results on his Truth Social platform. Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev then took a screengrab of Trump’s post and praised a “historic win for the pragmatic AfD”. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk took a sharply different view, saying “in Poland only idiots and traitors can rejoice at the triumph of the AfD”.
Ahead of Germany’s federal election last year, US Vice-President JD Vance endorsed the party, in a move criticised in Germany as political interference. The AfD also won the 2024 state election in neighbouring Thuringia, but failed to secure enough seats to win power there.
Parliament opens 6 October as seating plan sparks controversy
The newly elected Saxony-Anhalt parliament is due to convene for the first time on 6 October, with the AfD holding 39 of its 83 seats, according to Le Monde. The seating arrangement has already drawn attention: AfD lawmakers will sit in the centre of the chamber, as will those from the BSW, while the Greens have been placed on the far right of the chamber, next to the CDU.
Coalition talks are expected to continue well before that date. Siegmund told supporters overnight: “This isn’t just about Saxony-Anhalt. It’s a signal for the whole of Germany, a self-confident signal.”
