The far-right populist and anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) won a crucial state election in Germany, but it is still unclear whether it will be able to form a government and become the first far-right party to come to power at the regional or parliamentary level since World War II.
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The results gave the party 39 seats in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, falling just short of the absolute majority of 42, but well ahead of its closest rival. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party, collapsed and would go from 40 to 16 deputies, half the votes obtained in the 2021 regional elections.
Before a crowd of supporters in Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s main candidate in the state elections, called his party’s victory historic. “We have made history and are taking back our country,” he said to an enthusiastic crowd. “It all starts here, in Saxony-Anhalt,” he added.
Even though it did not achieve an absolute majority, the result shook the country’s political class. Exit polls indicated that many of the AfD’s gains came at the expense of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party.
The current leader of Saxony-Anhalt, Sven Schulze, of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), seemed regretful when he told his followers on Sunday night that “the people have sent a clear message.”
Lars Klingbeil, the country’s vice chancellor and a center-left Social Democrat, told a television interviewer that “tonight is a turning point. There are many people in Saxony-Anhalt, and I think also throughout Germany, who are scared and worried about the AfD’s election result.”
AfD leaders will not know if they have enough seats to govern until they see which smaller parties enter the state parliament.
The newspaper The New York Times indicated that in this scenario where AfD has not achieved a majority, other parties will try to join forces to form a government. A task that will not be easy. Thus, it is likely that the Christian Democrats will come second and lead the negotiations, but some of their members refuse to cooperate with the far-left party Die Linke, which seems set to come third, because they also consider it extremist.
If those parties fail to resolve their differences, AfD could have the opportunity to attract rebellious members of those parties and perhaps, after all, come to power.
Approximately 1.7 million people were eligible to vote in this central-eastern state, which has 2.1 million inhabitants. The state, a relatively small area of the former East Germany, west of Berlin, has faced difficulties since German reunification in 1990.
For example, it has lost more population than any other, and the unemployment rate is well above the national average, around 8%. The current leader is Sven Schulze, of the center-right Christian Democrats, the same party as Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Alternative for Germany is a far-right populist party founded in 2013. Initially, it focused on opposing Germany’s adoption of the euro, and since then the party has capitalized on popular discontent over immigration from the Middle East and exploited uncertainty about economic stagnation to lead national polls in Germany.
However, the AfD remains a pariah within the German political class. The CDU and all other traditional parties have refused to form a government with the AfD, in what is known as a protective barrier (Brandmauer).
German intelligence services have classified the AfD as a group “suspected of extremism.”
Some party leaders have downplayed the Holocaust and adopted Nazi slogans. Others maintain strong ties with Russia. The party has also declared that Islam is incompatible with the German Constitution and has promised mass deportations of immigrants, which has led its opponents to accuse it of treating Germans of immigrant origin as second-class citizens.
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One of the main reasons why the AfD was not expected to win is the apparent success of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, known by its German initials BSW. The party is likely to get more than 5% of the vote, the threshold needed to gain seats in the state parliament, and could be decisive for the government of Saxony-Anhalt. BSW is a populist party with political positions both left and right. Its leaders have stated that they will not support either the AfD or the current state leader, Sven Schulze, of the Christian Democratic Union.
One option that could occur, indicated The New York Times, is that the BSW, a populist party with positions both left and right, could abstain at some point from voting in the election for State President. In that case, the other parties—the Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Greens, and Die Linke—would have one more seat than the AfD, just enough to elect a leader of their choice.
Experts have pointed out that among the reasons for the AfD’s victory is a frustrated electorate seeking to shake up the German political system.
Supporters of the party, especially in eastern states like Saxony-Anhalt, consider the AfD their best chance to break the dominance of centrist parties in postwar Germany’s political power. The AfD has tried to win votes in Saxony-Anhalt with proposals including reducing social assistance for immigrants and increasing financial support for native German families with both a father and mother.
The party has deployed a clever social media campaign and has had a relatively young and photogenic gubernatorial candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, who is a TikTok star.
“Symbolically, a majority victory for the party in Saxony-Anhalt would be an earthquake for the postwar political system, designed to foster moderation and consensus, and prevent the return to power of parties considered extremist. Such a result could endanger Merz’s position, who would have to defend himself from criticism from his own allies, who would blame him for the defeat. A resounding victory could also help normalize the AfD, encouraging some moderate legislators to feel more comfortable forming coalitions with the party,” the newspaper The New York Times said.
“In practice, an AfD government would immediately trigger a dispute over whether federal and state intelligence services should continue sharing sensitive information with the Saxony-Anhalt government, as is currently customary. The German Defense Minister has stated that he will try to end this practice, arguing that AfD maintains too close ties with Russia,” it added.
The AfD candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, 35-year-old Ulrich Siegmund, leveraged his internet popularity to get closer to power than any other far-right politician in Germany since the end of the Nazi era in 1945.
The former air freshener salesman gained greater notoriety during the coronavirus pandemic, when he was then a little-known deputy, who with an energetic speech and a telegenic smile began attacking health rules on TikTok. Complaining about masks, vaccines, and other government requirements he considered madness, the deputy attracted millions of viewers with his videos, using a friendly tone to convey an anti-system message, The New York Times reported.
Siegmund said, in an interview for a Politico podcast, that he could not “claim to judge” whether the Holocaust was the worst crime in human history, “because it is impossible for me to understand the entirety of human history.” He also refused to condemn supporters who chanted his surname, Siegmund, in the style of the Nazi salute “Sieg Heil.”
However, according to experts, Siegmund has won the support of Saxony-Anhalt voters thanks to his ability to present the party’s most intransigent policies with a more accessible and optimistic tone than many of his AfD colleagues, without distancing himself from extremists.
In addition to deporting immigrants, the party has proposed cutting funding for public broadcasters, banning gay pride flags in schools, increasing Russian language teaching, as well as offering tax exemptions for large families and free daycare.
“I can bring motivation, generate optimism, and get things moving again,” Siegmund said in an interview with The New York Times this year.
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