In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD has achieved what democratic systems rarely produce without resolution: a landslide without a mandate to govern. Winning more than 40 percent of the vote, the party stands as the clear voice of a plurality of citizens, yet finds itself encircled by a formal cordon — every major rival refusing coalition talks on the grounds that the party has been classified as confirmed far-right extremist by Germany's own intelligence apparatus. This tension between electoral legitimacy and institutional exclusion raises enduring questions about how democracies absorb movements they