USA
Wall Street Journal: "The signal is clear, even if the calculated majority ratio may not give the AfD a viable majority in the state government. Voters are tired of the established parties. This frustration is primarily fueled by the liberal immigration policy that Berlin has pursued for a decade since 2015, and which is proving difficult to reverse. Added to this is economic weakness, against which Berlin has found no effective remedy. (...) The "Left-right coalition paralyzes Merz, whose personal instincts in economic and foreign policy actually point in the direction of the reforms that Germany needs."
France
Ouest-France: "To see how they unite behind them at the ballot box almost every second voter is a shock for millions of Germans for whom the AfD is a threat to their democracy, an insult to the promise 'Never again' and a setback for all the work that has been done regarding their past. No other country has invested as much in joint education and remembrance work as Germany in order to avert the return of the past. (...) Both the Kremlin and the White House are with us Saxony-Anhalt is a small federal state, but the effects are large."
Switzerland
Neue Zürcher Zeitung: "The CDU's worst nightmare has come true: the voters have halved the party. (...) This election was a vote of no confidence in the entire party, not just the regional association in Saxony-Anhalt. The surveys show it clearly. 86 percent of the voters who left expressed their disappointment with Chancellor Friedrich Merz. He promised too much and delivered too little."
Tages-Anzeiger: "State elections often reflect the mood towards the federal government. The result is therefore also a verdict on the black-red coalition in Berlin - and a bad one for Chancellor Friedrich Merz. He always spoke of wanting to remove the AfD. Now the partly right-wing extremist party in Saxony-Anhalt is confirming its upward trend. What is even more unfavorable for him is that the CDU's crash is even worse than expected. Some in the party are looking for those responsible look in his direction. With his unpopularity, the German Chancellor damaged the conservatives in the election campaign in Saxony-Anhalt."
Great Britain
Independent: "The party's election victory represents a historic shift in German politics after years of other parties working together to keep the far right out of power. (...) This victory is the biggest success in the AfD's 13-year history and comes at a time of widespread discontent with an unpopular federal government that has so far failed to convince voters that it can revive the country's ailing economy. The victory is also a symbolic setback for Merz, whose Center-right party ruled Saxony-Anhalt for 24 years."
Netherlands
De Tijd: "The election result was nothing less than an earthquake in Germany's political order since the end of the war. (...) The AfD's success is unusual in that Germany has always grappled with its Nazi past. The party is close to the neo-Nazi movement, spreads racist conspiracy theories and advocates the 'remigration' of people with a migrant background. In addition, the AfD is pursuing a decidedly pro-Russian course, while the federal government is currently facing a hybrid war Moscow warned. But the voters didn't care. For the AfD party leadership, Saxony-Anhalt was confirming that its strategy was working.
Italy
La Repubblica: "Germany wrote a new page in its history yesterday, and it is a worrying page. In a small state, Saxony-Anhalt, where three percent of the German population lives, an overwhelming majority of voters betrayed the promise of 'Never again.' And for the first time since the end of National Socialism, a far-right party that uses slogans and draws on the inhumane ideas of that era, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), is taking on a region govern."
Corriere della Sera: "The AfD's triumph has historic proportions, even if it does not come into government. But even before that, the extreme right forced the whole of Europe to turn its gaze in its direction - until Europe seems to be hypnotized by it. From a small Lutheran federal state that is important for German history, but rather marginal for the present, the AfD is now moving from the periphery to the center."
Spain
El País: "Everything that once stood is crumbling, and many of the instruments that once served to contain the extreme right have proven useless or even counterproductive. The AfD's overwhelming victory in the small eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt will force the democratic camp to rethink its strategies of recent years and to reassess some truths that were previously considered irrefutable. Copying the program of the extreme right, as many European conservatives have done have done, for example, has proven to be ineffective: voters generally prefer the original."
La Vanguardia: The far-right AfD, which is even more extreme than other European right-wing extremists, has achieved an undeniable victory in the election in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt and could soon rule. The rapid rise of a party whose leaders flirted with the Nazi past and did not hide their sympathies for Vladimir Putin's Russia is worrying at the federal level, as the same AfD is leading the polls for the federal elections amid the collapse of the ruling parties. Yesterday's result casts a new shadow over the future of a frightened Europe just before the French presidential election, in which the far-right Marine Le Pen is also the favorite."
Poland
Polityka: "The AfD's triumph is a political nightmare for Friedrich Merz, who is already one of the least popular German chancellors. (...) After the election on Sunday, the new state government must be in place within 30 days - that's what German law says. This means that next month Germany expects a festival of political declarations without covering costs, a festival of attacks on Merz as well as debates about early federal elections and the possible breakup of the federal government. If you take into account the weakening economy, the German industrial model that is crumbling before the eyes of the world and growing unemployment, then it is not impossible that we are all on the threshold of a gigantic German crisis that will undoubtedly spread across the entire continent.
Hungary
Nepszava: "36 years after reunification, Germany has become much more economically unified. However, it feels like East and West are moving away from each other again. The right-wing extremist AfD exploits this division more cleverly than anyone else these days. And that can lead to dramatic consequences not only for Germany, but for all of Europe."
Czech Republic
Hospodarske noviny: "The effort to isolate the AfD and - citing its extremism - not allow it to come to power only strengthens this party further. In addition, the Union is forcing itself to form broad coalitions with parties on the left side of the political spectrum. (...) Such governments can only agree on a minimum of things. And with that dissatisfaction is growing - also among the CDU supporters."
