Far-right AfD surges in German regional vote but falls short of governing majority

The Alternative for Germany, a far-right party that has spent thirteen years building power from the margins, came closer than ever to running a German state—but stopped just short of the finish line. In elections for the Saxony-Anhalt regional parliament, the AfD captured 43.8 percent of the vote, more than double what it won five years earlier in this region of 2.1 million people west of Berlin. The party secured 39 seats in the 83-member legislature. To govern alone, it needed 42. That three-seat gap may prove decisive.

Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD's 35-year-old candidate for governor, declared that his party had "written history" and possessed a clear mandate to lead. He told public broadcaster ARD that voters had sent a message: things cannot continue as they are. He credited Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany's governing center-right party, as an inadvertent campaigner for the AfD—a backhanded compliment to a chancellor whose own party has become deeply unpopular. Merz's Christian Democratic Union collapsed to 17.2 percent support in a state it had governed for the past twenty-four years, winning only fifteen seats. The Social Democrats took 9.3 percent and eight seats, the Greens 8.9 percent and eight seats, the Left Party 8.6 percent and eight seats. A newer party called the BSW, which has criticized the mainstream parties' refusal to work with the AfD, captured 5.3 percent and five seats. Turnout was exceptionally high at 77.8 percent, suggesting that many people who had not voted in the previous regional election came to the polls this time.

The AfD's surge represents a watershed moment in modern German politics. No far-right or right-wing populist party has ever led a national government, a state government, or a major city in Germany since World War II. The AfD is already the largest opposition party in the national parliament and dominates in the formerly communist and economically weaker eastern regions. The party's Saxony-Anhalt branch has been classified by Germany's domestic intelligence agency as a proven right-wing extremist group, citing members' denigration of migrants from Muslim countries and the party's promotion of "remigration"—a term for forced deportation of immigrants. One of the party's leaders in a neighboring state has appealed two convictions for knowingly using Nazi slogans. The AfD rejects all accusations of extremism as politically motivated.

Siegmund's stated priorities reveal the party's governing agenda. He has called for "a deportation offensive" and the elimination of incentives that he believes encourage immigrants to exploit Germany's social system. He wants to initiate a process to withdraw Saxony-Anhalt from the regional public broadcaster, claiming it spreads "disinformation." The party plans to allow home schooling, which is currently prohibited across Germany, and to ban schools from officially displaying the rainbow flag, which it characterizes as standing for "the devaluation of the family." It pledges to ensure schools fly the national flag instead. On foreign policy—matters that state governments cannot actually control—the AfD opposes sending taxpayers' money to Ukraine and says it would push to lift sanctions against Russia.

Yet Siegmund has also said the party will not engage in "games" such as forming a minority government, meaning the AfD appears unwilling to govern without an absolute majority. This stance leaves the question of how any government will actually be formed. The mainstream parties have maintained what they call a "firewall" against cooperation with the AfD. Franziska Hoppermann, the national general secretary of Merz's CDU, stated flatly: "AfD is a right-wing extremist party. It wants to leave the euro; that would be economic downfall. It works closely together with Russia. It wants a completely different social model. We will not work with them." The incumbent governor, Sven Schulze of the CDU, congratulated the AfD on becoming the state's strongest political force but offered no clarity on how his party might respond. Any attempt by Schulze to assemble a governing coalition would require at least tacit support from the Left Party, a hard-left group with which the CDU refuses to form formal alliances—a political knot that may prove impossible to untie.

AfD's national co-leader, Alice Weidel, called the result "sensational" and said the party's "hand is outstretched to all who want to make Saxony-Anhalt better and move Germany forward," signaling hope that defectors from other parties might cross over. The election reflects broader discontent with the national government's inability to revive Germany's sluggish economy. For the AfD, a state government would represent the biggest prize in its thirteen-year history. For Germany's mainstream political establishment, the result poses a question with no obvious answer: how to govern when the strongest party is deemed unfit to rule, and the parties that might govern together lack the numbers to do so without either the AfD or the hard left. The state of Saxony-Anhalt, though one of Germany's smaller states with limited influence in the national upper house, controls four of sixty-nine votes there—enough to shape decisions on education, security, and other matters that require approval from the states' governments.