AFD receives record support in Saxony-Anhalt – over 80 percent turnout

The most telling figure in the election results for Saxony-Anhalt is not that the far-right AFD appears to be getting 44 percent. It is that the party is making its best ever result in an election where a record number of voters have voted - over 80 percent.

The East German state has never had such a high voter turnout since reunification. In the last state election in Saxony-Anhalt in 2021, 60.3 percent of voters voted.

AFD wins because they got the couch potatoes to vote. The result was expected, but that the right-wing radicals would be this close to getting a simple majority is a shock for the whole of Germany.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who is extremely unpopular in Saxony-Anhalt, has not been seen very much during the election campaign. It was on purpose – his presence was a burden. Merz once promised to halve voter support for AFD. When he was recently asked in a television interview about his old promise, he replied annoyed that those were different times then.

Now Merz and the party leadership find themselves in an extremely difficult situation. Even if the result only applies to one state, it is a huge push forward for the AFD – not least in the next state election in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on September 20, where the AFD also leads the opinion polls with 35 percent.

The best the Christian Democratic CDU could hope for was not even a narrow victory, but an honorable defeat. Now the loss was not even honorable, but crushing. According to polling station polls, the CDU received 18.5 percent.

At the CDU's election vigil in Magdeburg, the party's Bundestag member Sepp Müller refuses to give a single comment after the polling station polls have been run. Instead, he waves all the journalists away and quickly leaves the room.

In Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt, many are worried – not least city dwellers with an immigrant background.

- I can probably live with AFD in power, there are certainly good people there too. But it depends on what they intend to do, says Ali.

He works as a taxi driver and picks me up after I unsuccessfully try to barge my way into the AFD's vigil in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt. Not many foreign journalists have been given a place - AFD are known to be stingy with accreditations.

Instead, the journalists take refuge in the electoral vigil of the losers, namely that of the Christian Democrats (CDU). The approximately 30-year-old Ali who drives me there is from Syria and has lived in Magdeburg for nine years. Went to school, learned German and now has two jobs – hairdresser and taxi driver.

Like many immigrants I have met in Germany, Ali says that he can actually agree with some parts of the AFD's policy.

- I have nothing against foreigners living on benefits having to leave the country, he says.

But:

- It is not okay that they spread this atmosphere of hatred. I have never been so insulted by my customers as I am now. Especially when you have runs in the middle of the night and pick people up at nightclubs. They have no barriers anymore. And it's often young people who tell me to go home.

Now Ali is worried that even foreigners who work and study will be deported. He already knows of such cases.

He himself is not allowed to vote. He submitted his application for German citizenship two years ago, but has still not received a response.

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The far-right AFD is headed for a landslide victory in German state elections