In the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the Alternative for Germany party has claimed the largest share of votes in a state election — a milestone that speaks to the deepening resonance of far-right politics in a region still shaped by post-reunification anxieties. Yet electoral plurality and governing authority are not the same inheritance: every other major party has refused coalition partnership, leaving the victors in a peculiar limbo of popular mandate without political power. Germany's democratic architecture, forged in the long shadow of its own history, is being tested not by a s