AfD can become largest party in Saxony-Anhalt - far-right success in eastern Germany

Today, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) can become the largest party in another German state. In 2024, they won the election in Thuringia, but because no one else wanted to cooperate with a party that happily reuses old Nazi slogans, they did not come all the way to power that time. In Saxony-Anhalt, which is now going to the polls, the AfD can, on the other hand, get its own majority.

That it happens right there is no surprise. In Saxony-Anhalt, the far right has long had greater support than in the rest of Germany. Already at the end of the 1990s, the far-right German People's Union (DVU) received almost 13 percent in the state, and their old sympathizers today wholeheartedly support the AfD. In order to reach the 40-45 percent that AfD now has in the local opinion polls, however, something more is required.

As many as three-quarters of the AfD's sympathizers in eastern Germany believe that reunification made their lives worse

Many point to the economy. The former East Germany, where both Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt are located, after an initial reunification spurt had for a long time significantly lower growth and higher unemployment than the West. Demographics in the east are also problematic, Saxony-Anhalt has among Germany's oldest populations and young people, especially young women, are moving away from there. This in turn leads both to young men finding it more difficult to find a partner and that it is difficult to maintain community services such as schools and nursing homes.

East nostalgia is another factor: fully three-quarters of AfD sympathizers in eastern Germany believe that reunification made their lives worse. That Alternative for Germany demands halted aid to Ukraine, a normalization of the relationship with Russia and repeated suspicions of leaking secret information to the Kremlin may not disturb voters who already dream of returning to the GDR.

But AfD is not only big in the east, according to several opinion polls they are the biggest party in the whole country. It certainly takes a lot for the party to reach all the way to power in Berlin. Not least, the bourgeoisie, specifically the Christian Democratic CDU, must probably tear down the firewall against the far right. But who nowadays feels confident that something like that could never happen?

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