AfD achieved historic result in Saxony-Anhalt with over 44 percent

According to projections, the AfD, which the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified as firmly right-wing extremist, has more than doubled its result in Saxony-Anhalt compared to the election five years ago. At that time it was 20.8 percent. Projections now see the party with at least 44 percent of the vote. The AfD could still narrowly miss the absolute majority of mandates.

“This is a historic result and it is a very clear government mandate,” said party leader Alice Weidel on ZDF. Top candidate Ulrich Siegmund ruled out a minority government under his leadership. “We don’t want to bend over backwards for any power options,” he said on ZDF.

See F.A.Z. articles more often in your search results

F.A.Z. prefer on Google

CDU crashes

The previously ruling CDU came in second place, but achieved its historically worst result in Saxony-Anhalt. According to the projections, voters have halved their result compared to the 2021 election.

“This result is a turning point for the party, for the country,” said Chancellor Nina Warken (CDU) on ZDF. However, she ruled out any personal consequences. The leader of the Union parliamentary group, Thorsten Frei (CDU), made a similar statement. “I think it is very important in this situation that we are stable overall and remain stable,” he said on ARD. We will now have to deal with the question of why the CDU is not getting the approval it wants. This applies “basically to the entire federal government”.

The SPD chairman and vice-chancellor Lars Klingbeil also sees the result as a “signal to Berlin”. “This is a reason to think about the federal government’s reform course,” he said on ZDF. The SPD was able to slightly improve its result from five years ago.

Prime Minister Sven Schulze has already congratulated the AfD. "The election winner, the AfD, is now the strongest force in the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt, and we as the CDU will also have to deal with this result," he said at his party's election party in Magdeburg. "It was an extremely hard and intense election campaign." The previous state government made up of the CDU, SPD and FDP no longer comes close to a majority. The FDP even clearly missed out on entering the state parliament.

BSW could fail at the five percent hurdle

According to the projections, the BSW has to worry about entering the state parliament - among other things, it will depend on whether it is enough for an absolute majority of mandates for the AfD. If the AfD fails to achieve this, it would have to rely on alliance partners to come to government. However, none of the other parties want to form a coalition with her.

The Left and the Greens will also be represented in the state parliament. The Greens in particular performed significantly better than many surveys had suggested. "Many had written off Alliance 90/The Greens as an all-German party. And in all likelihood, today will be the best election result in the history of state elections in Saxony-Anhalt," said Green party leader Felix Banaszak on ZDF.

In Saxony-Anhalt, almost 1.7 million eligible voters were called to cast their votes. According to initial projections, voter turnout was almost 80 percent - significantly higher than in 2021. At that time it was 60.3 percent.

The first session of the new state parliament must take place no later than the 30th day after the election. This is October 6th. Then the terms of office of the ministers and the head of government also end. However, according to the constitution, they are obliged to continue running the business until their successors take over. There is no deadline by which a new head of government must be elected, but there are deadlines for possible further elections if the first and subsequent rounds fail.