Far-right AfD wins big in German regional election, falls short of majority

Alternative for Germany, the far-right party known as AfD, scored a decisive victory in Saxony-Anhalt’s regional election on Sunday but did not win enough seats to rule the eastern German state by itself. The result puts the party close to a threshold that would have allowed it to bypass opposition from established rivals and form a government alone, but leaves it short of an outright majority in the state parliament.

The election nonetheless marks a major political moment for the AfD. A solo administration in Saxony-Anhalt would have been the first far-right-led state government in Germany since the end of World War II. Instead, the party’s strong showing is expected to intensify the debate over whether Germany’s traditional parties can continue to keep it out of executive power through their longstanding refusal to cooperate with it.

That cross-party refusal is often described as a political firewall. Mainstream parties have treated cooperation with the AfD as off limits, making an absolute majority especially important for the party if it hopes to lead a state government without partners. Sunday’s result did not remove that barrier, even as it demonstrated that the AfD has become a formidable force in the state.

The contrast was particularly sharp for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party, which suffered a severe setback in Saxony-Anhalt. The outcome adds pressure on Merz, whose leadership has drawn public dissatisfaction, and gives the AfD a high-profile regional result from which to argue that voters are rejecting the direction offered by the federal political establishment.

Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s 35-year-old candidate for state premier, portrayed the vote as a mandate to take charge. He said the party had made history and argued that the electorate had shown that the existing course could not simply continue. In a comment to public broadcaster ARD, he also pointed to Merz as an unexpected asset to the AfD’s campaign.

The AfD has built its appeal in part around opposition to immigration and a stance viewed as sympathetic toward Russia. Those positions distinguish it from the parties that maintain the firewall, but they also help explain why a large electoral advance does not automatically translate into a route to government. The central issue after the vote is therefore not only how many votes the AfD won, but whether the parliamentary arithmetic permits it to turn that support into power.

For the party, falling just below a majority is both a limitation and a useful measure of its progress. It cannot claim the unambiguous authority that comes with controlling the legislature alone, and it still faces resistance from potential governing partners. At the same time, the result gives the AfD grounds to present itself as a leading political voice in a state where it has now registered a striking win.

For Merz and the established parties, the election raises a different set of questions. Their strategy depends on preserving a common line against cooperation with the AfD while persuading voters that they can respond to the frustrations driving support for it. The poor result for the chancellor’s party will likely sharpen scrutiny of whether that balance can be maintained in future regional contests. It also means the election will be read beyond Saxony-Anhalt as a test of the broader political response to the AfD’s advance, despite the vote being decided at the state level.

What happens next will depend on negotiations and on the makeup of the new state legislature. The AfD’s failure to reach an absolute majority means it cannot simply install a government on its own, while the other parties must decide how to assemble a workable governing arrangement without breaking their stated boundary. The election has not produced a far-right state administration, but it has moved that prospect from a distant concern to a more immediate test for German politics. The result will now be measured against the parties’ ability to produce a stable alternative.

Source: CBS World