AfD wins elections in Saxony-Anhalt and becomes the strongest force in the state

A new wall has fallen in Germany. The one that the center democratic parties have raised for historical reasons to the extreme right. Alternative for Germany (AfD) has overthrown him at the polls in Saxony-Anhalt, where, with 97% of the votes counted, he swept with 44.4% of the votes, more than double that of five years ago, and left the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at an abysmal distance, with just 17%, practically half of the 37.1% it obtained in 2021.

The populist wave that has been changing the political map of the European Union, with the support of Russia in some cases and under the inspiration of the MAGA model of the United States in others, has finally placed a pike in Germany: a far-right force converted into a dominant party and knocking on the doors of power.

"A historic result" and "a clear government mandate," AfD co-chair Alice Weidel proclaimed exultantly. The candidate of this formation in Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, claimed for his part the right to govern and assured that "the hand towards the other parties always remains extended." There is fine print: it will only negotiate with forces with which the AfD's "core positions" can be implemented. For now there are none.

For the CDU, the other side of tonight, the result is a real disaster. Its candidate, Sven Schulze, accepted defeat without looking for excuses. There weren't any. "We live in a democracy and I want to congratulate the winner of the elections," he said. "The winner, AfD, is now the strongest force in the Saxony-Anhalt Parliament." And in response to those who spoke of a "black day" for the federal state, he responded: "I say: this is democracy. People have gone to vote."

And he did it en masse. Participation was around 76.5%, well above that recorded five years ago. But this time the mobilization, far from serving as a dam against the extreme right, boosted it. AfD did not limit itself to mobilizing its own: it managed to bring to the polls some 157,000 voters who in 2021 had stayed at home and snatched another 83,000 votes directly from the CDU.

It thus grew from both extremes: conquering foreign voters and recovering former abstentionists to the polls. And it also did so transversally, until reaching the absolute majority among voters aged 35 to 59. The generational contrast for the CDU is devastating: among those under 25 years of age it remained at just 5% and among those between 25 and 34, at 6%. Only among those over 70 did it manage to match the AfD, with 31% for each.

The result also forces us to rethink the meaning of the Brandmauer, the firewall built around the AfD. Designed to keep the extreme right out of power, it is increasingly difficult to sustain as a simple cordon sanitaire when it leaves the party chosen by around 44% of voters outside of any majority. And yet, the paradox is considerable: just three days before the elections, 50% of voters said they preferred a government led by the CDU and only 37% one led by the AfD. The wall may still stand between the parties and a large part of the electorate, but it has been left with holes at the polls: to keep the AfD out of the Government, practically the entire rest of the parliamentary arc would have to be understood, from the CDU to Die Linke.

Once the shock of the result has passed, all attention is now focused on how to form a government and, above all, how to keep the AfD out of it. At the close of this edition, the polls drew a provisional but devilish arithmetic. If the BSW, Sahra Wagenknecht's left-wing populist party, falls below 5% and out of Parliament, the AfD could take 41 of the 83 seats, just one short of an absolute majority. The CDU, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and Die Linke would together add the necessary 42. But that majority would force the CDU to come to terms with Die Linke, precisely the other party, in addition to the AfD, with which the Christian Democrats reject any cooperation.

The entry of the BSW would change the board again. One of the projections attributed five seats and reduced the AfD to 39. Between them they would add 44, two above the absolute majority. There is currently no alliance between the two parties, but the BSW has openly questioned the firewall. The last handful of votes can thus decide much more than the distribution of seats.

For the CDU, the arithmetic leaves a real Gordian knot. Keeping the AfD out of the government may force it to seek, directly or indirectly, the support of Die Linke and thus cross one of its own red lines. Breaking the firewall on the right would be even more explosive and could open a fracture with unpredictable consequences within the party. The CDU is trapped between two borders that it itself drew.

The coup reaches Berlin and has a recipient: Chancellor Friedrich Merz. From the federal leadership of the CDU, the Minister of the Chancellery, Nina Warken, spoke of "censorship" and a result that "hits us." ARD's electoral analysis helps measure the dimension of the punishment: 59% of voters consider that the federal government deserved a punishment vote and only 9% value Merz positively. When asked who bears the greatest responsibility for the discontent with the federal coalition, 58% point to the CDU.

The size of the result no longer allows us to reduce the phenomenon to certain social groups. AfD was the most voted force among men and women, among young and old. He has built a much more transversal electorate than his opponents wanted to admit for years and has demonstrated a capacity for mobilization that none of them managed to match.

Young and smiling

Siegmund understood this a long time ago. Young, smiling, omnipresent on the networks and extraordinarily skilled at packaging radical proposals in a language of normality, security and belonging, he has made emotion a political tool. Communication expert Johannes Hillje has baptized this formula as Feel-Good-Rechtsextremismus, an extreme right of good vibes. Siegmund sells a world where neighbors help each other, children can play quietly in the street until nightfall, and the community once again offers security and belonging. In short, it sells the nostalgia of a country that it never got to know and that it promises to recover.

For Merz, the conclusion is especially bitter. He had promised to halve support for the AfD. Reality has followed exactly the opposite direction. His strategy consisted of hardening positions, especially on immigration, to win back voters who had emigrated to the extreme right and at the same time keep intact the firewall that prevented any cooperation with it. Saxony-Anhalt questions both sides of the operation.

And the exam continues. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin vote in two weeks. In the first, AfD once again leads the polls, although the SPD has managed to reduce the gap considerably. In Berlin, the CDU and Die Linke are fighting for first position in an election in which four parties, from the left to the extreme right, appear concentrated in just three points. They are different scenarios, but they depict an increasingly fragmented and polarized Germany, with the large traditional parties losing ground and the political center increasingly narrower. Saxony-Anhalt has just shown how far this displacement can go.

REACTIONS

The historic victory of the German extreme right on Sunday in Saxony-Anhalt represents "a serious moment for Europe", according to the French minister responsible for European Affairs, who has urged "never stop defending" democratic values and the European project.

“It is a serious moment for Europe to see how the extreme right prevails in a regional election in Germany,” declared Benjamin Haddad in X.

«We must humbly listen to anger, concerns and fears, and respond to them. But nationalism and xenophobia will never be a solution," he stressed. «We cannot forget our history. "That is the meaning of the decisions of France and Germany."

The president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, has described the electoral victory of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the regional elections in Saxony-Anhalt as "a great hope for Germany and for Europe."

"Congratulations to Alice Weidel and Ulrich Siegmund for this spectacular result that is a great hope for Germany and for Europe," Abascal said this Sunday through a message on the social network 'X', collected by Europa Press.