Alternative for Germany (AfD) has won the elections in Saxony-Anhalt by a landslide. According to the first projection by public television ZDF, the far-right party obtains 44% of the votes, more than double the 20.8% obtained five years ago, and leaves the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at a huge distance, which sinks to 18.5%. The big question of the night is whether this result will allow the AfD to take the absolute majority of seats and govern alone.
The turnaround regarding the 2021 elections is extraordinary. AfD goes from 20.8% to 44%, while the CDU loses practically half of its electorate: from 37.1% with which it won five years ago to 18.5%. Die Linke falls two points, from 11% to 9%, while the SPD remains practically stagnant - from 8.4% to 9% - and the Greens clearly improve from 5.9% in 2021. The FDP, which then obtained 6.4%, is left out.
The first photograph thus leaves a completely transformed Parliament. Not only does the AfD double its strength and turn the CDU into a second force more than 25 points behind, but the arithmetic of forming an alternative majority becomes enormously complicated. If it does not finally reach an absolute majority, Ulrich Siegmund's party does not have any partner with which to govern and the rest of the forces will have to find a formula to keep him out of power.
If we take these percentages and a base 'Landtag' of 83 seats, the Afd would achieve 39 seats with these percentages, the CDU, 16; Die Link, 8; the Greens, 8; SPD, 7; and BSW, 5. The absolute majority is 42 seats, so the Afd would be three seats away from reaching it.
The AfD leadership received the first screenings to loud applause. Party co-president Alice Weidel has described the result as "historic" and interpreted it as "a clear government mandate." The AfD had precisely made the conquest of power the objective of these elections and its national leadership had presented Saxony-Anhalt as the first step to break the political isolation to which the party is subjected.
The president of the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, Martin Reichardt, has also claimed the right of his party to govern and assured that they are willing to talk to all those who want to do so. Reichardt has also opened the door to seeking changing majorities in Parliament to carry out concrete measures, a formula that would allow the AfD to try to govern without a stable coalition and would force the rest of the parties to decide in each vote to what extent they maintain the firewall.
The AfD arrives tonight with a government program already prepared. Among its first measures are toughening deportations and expanding detention places for foreigners pending deportation, imposing compulsory work on asylum seekers and creating separate classes for children of families with no prospects of remaining in Germany. The party also intends to rescind the treaty that regulates public radio and television and reduce the structure of the regional government.
The claim to power thus immediately increases the pressure on the rest of the parties. If the AfD does not finally reach an absolute majority, the refusal of the other forces to form a coalition with it would in principle prevent Ulrich Siegmund from becoming head of the Government. But with more than four out of 10 votes according to the first projections, AfD already poses the political battle in other terms: not only who can gather a parliamentary majority, but to what extent the Brandmauer (sanitary cordon) can be maintained against the force that has won the elections with an enormous advantage.
The answer depends largely on the 5% barrier. According to the ZDF projection, Die Linke obtains 9% and the SPD another 9%, while the Greens rise to 8.5%. The BSW is on the edge, with 4.8%, and the FDP disappears from Parliament with just 2.5%. If the BSW is finally left out, the percentage of votes without representation will increase and the AfD will be closer to transforming its 44% of votes into an absolute majority of seats.
The debacle has left the CDU leadership visibly affected. Its general secretary, Franziska Hoppermann, has appeared before the ARD cameras and has acknowledged that "it is a very harsh result; this affects one." But he ruled out that the electoral collapse is going to modify the party's position against the AfD. "We do not work with right-wing extremists, and for understandable reasons," he stated, reaffirming the firewall despite the 44% obtained by the far-right party in the first projections. The CDU has lost half.
The first projections in Saxony-Anhalt thus take to the limit a strategy that for years has marked the relationship of German politics with the extreme right. The Brandmauer, as the firewall built around the AfD is known in German, has managed to exclude the party from any political collaboration, but not contain its growth. And that was precisely the other half of the bet: isolating the AfD while the traditional parties regained their voters. The opposite has happened.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz even promised in 2018 to halve support for the AfD. Eight years later, the party has multiplied its strength. The strategy of disputing his issues has not worked either. The Government has toughened its immigration policy and Merz has placed immigration among the axes of his chancellery, but the AfD has not backed down. He has also expanded the battlefield: from immigration to energy, Ukraine, Russia and the rejection of political elites that he presents as interchangeable.
But the problem with the firewall is no longer just that it has not stopped the AfD. The more the extreme right grows, the more difficult it is to build majorities without it and the more ideologically distant the parties necessary to achieve them are.
