BSW's kingmaker role in Germany tests fragile coalition with AfD

In Saxony-Anhalt, one of Germany's eastern states, the far-right Alternative for Germany secured 44 percent of the vote in a recent election—enough to dominate the political landscape but not enough to govern alone. That shortfall has handed unexpected leverage to an unlikely player: the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, a party so new it barely existed two years ago, now positioned as a potential kingmaker in state politics.

Sahra Wagenknecht herself is a trained economist who spent decades in the socialist Left Party before breaking away to found her own movement in January 2024. She has never hidden her willingness to work with the far right. As early as 2023, she argued that people within the AfD were being unfairly labeled as Nazis. Her new party does not fit neatly into traditional political categories—she argues that many voters no longer relate to old labels like "left" or "right." What unites her supporters, she says, is a shared concern: they want controlled migration, not what she calls uncontrolled flows, and they want politics to serve their interests rather than abstract ideals.

The policy overlap between BSW and AfD runs deeper than immigration. Both parties oppose German military aid to Ukraine, both claim that free speech no longer exists in Germany, and both draw voters animated by similar grievances. Before the Saxony-Anhalt election on September 6, Wagenknecht openly discussed the possibility of her party simply abstaining from a vote to allow the AfD's lead candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, to become state premier. The AfD's Siegmund, for his part, insisted he would govern only with an absolute majority of his own—a position that leaves the door open but does not guarantee it will be walked through.

Yet the BSW's rise masks a party in crisis. When it was founded, the party moved fast: it entered the European Parliament and won double-digit results in three state elections within months. In Brandenburg and Thuringia, BSW branches joined government coalitions with established parties like the CDU and SPD. But this success came at a cost. The federal leadership under Wagenknecht wanted to maintain distance from mainstream parties; the state branches wanted power. That tension fractured the coalition in Brandenburg starting in 2025. In Thuringia, most BSW lawmakers abandoned the party just two days before the Saxony-Anhalt election, choosing to stay in the CDU-led government rather than follow Wagenknecht's flirtation with the AfD. Finance Minister Katja Wolf, one of those who left, was blunt: "We have not been elected to tolerate flirts with right-wing radicals."

The internal hemorrhaging reflects a deeper credibility problem. During the 2025 federal election, the BSW failed to reach the 5 percent threshold needed to enter the Bundestag. The party seemed finished. Wagenknecht herself stepped back from day-to-day leadership, though she remains a draw at rallies and continues to shape strategy from behind the scenes. The Saxony-Anhalt result—a strong showing that pre-election polls had not guaranteed—has given the party an unexpected lifeline. Wagenknecht responded to the outcome with confidence, telling the German news agency dpa that "the BSW's comeback has begun."

Whether that comeback is real will become clear on September 20, when voters in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin head to the polls. Those elections will test whether the BSW's recent gains represent genuine momentum or a temporary spike driven by local conditions and Wagenknecht's personal brand. They will also reveal whether the party can hold together long enough to capitalize on its newfound relevance, or whether the chasm between federal ambitions and state-level realities will continue to widen. For now, the BSW sits at a crossroads: it has the power to shape Germany's political future, but it may lack the internal cohesion to use that power without tearing itself apart.