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MAGDEBUR, Germany – The Alternative for Germany (AfD) was celebrating an overwhelming victory in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, even as projections showed the far-right party narrowly missing out on an absolute majority of seats in the eastern state’s parliament.
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Projections by broadcasters ARD and ZDF showed the AfD winning Sunday’s election with 44% of the vote, far ahead of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) with just 18%.
Cheers rang out at the AfD’s election party headquarters in Magdeburg as the first exit polls came in. Charismatic lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund said voters have given the party a “mandate to govern,” while the party’s co-leader Tino Chrupalla said the 35-year-old “will be the new premier of Saxony-Anhalt.”
The result is a major setback for Chancellor Friedrich Merz, with exit polls suggesting his approval rating among voters in Saxony-Anhalt has sunk to just 9% amid growing dissatisfaction with the CDU-led national government in Berlin. Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil from the center-left Social Democrats called the result a “turning point” for the country.
The AfD’s rise has come even as its branch in Saxony-Anhalt is under surveillance by intelligence services due to its “confirmed” extremist views. Its manifesto includes setting up a task force to speed up deportations, reviving school exchanges with Russia, creating segregated classes for the children of asylum-seekers and banning rainbow flags in schools.
The party has never participated in a ruling coalition in Germany’s 16 states or the federal government, as the country’s mainstream parties refuse to work with it, a policy infamously known as the “firewall.”
Under Siegmund, the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt has been hoping to bypass the firewall by winning an absolute majority, allowing it to become the first far-right party to govern a German state since World War II.
Despite the AfD outperforming pre-election polling, the scenario appears unlikely, leaving it far from clear who will lead the next government in Saxony-Anhalt.
Who will lead Saxony-Anhalt?
Turnout was 78% according to the latest projections, the highest in Saxony-Anhalt since German reunification in 1990, reflecting the huge attention generated by Sunday’s election.
A continuation of the existing three-way coalition under Premier Sven Schulze from the CDU is impossible, with the liberal Free Democrats set to finish far below the 5% threshold needed to win seats in parliament.
The AfD could seek to form a minority government, and Siegmund raised the prospect of other lawmakers deciding to join his party in parliament, in a nod to minor voices within the CDU that have called for the firewall to be dropped.
While a visibly downbeat Schulze initially failed to rule out abandoning the firewall in comments to public broadcaster ARD, he later clarified that he does “not intend to work with the AfD.”
A trio of left-wing parties – The Left, the Greens and the Social Democrats (SPD) – have comfortably passed the 5% hurdle, each hovering around 9%.
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They could potentially form a four-party coalition with the CDU, but Merz’s party has refused any collaboration with The Left, a successor to the communist party that governed the former East Germany.
Populist BSW emerges as potential kingmaker
The surprise of the evening, and a potential kingmaker, is the populist Sahra Wagnknecht Alliance (BSW), with the party on exactly 5% in the latest projections ahead of official results expected on Monday morning.
The BSW has points of agreement with the AfD on issues such as migration and opposition to German aid for Ukraine, and party founder Sahra Wagenknecht has warned that the firewall has “failed.”
However, the party’s co-leader Amira Mohamed Ali told dpa on Sunday that – if it does enter the state parliament – the BSW would support neither the AfD’s Siegmund nor the CDU’s Schulze to become Saxony-Anhalt’s next leader.
“After the election, we will do exactly what we said before the election,” she said, calling for an independent candidate to govern the state.
The BSW has history with missing the 5% threshold. In the national election in February 2025, the party finishing on 4.98% of the vote – meaning it won no seats in the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament.
Trouble for Merz?
While Merz’s nightmare scenario of an absolute majority for the AfD appears to have failed to materialize, the result is a major blow for the chancellor, who once famously pledged to halve the far-right party’s popularity.
The party will be hoping its victory in Saxony-Anhalt can be a springboard to success at the federal level. It is currently leading in national polls after finishing second in the 2025 election.
In contrast, Merz is already under huge pressure as his government struggles to implement a package of economic and social reforms.
Rising inflation and continuing trade disruption linked to the war in Iran have only complicated the task, while Merz’s leadership has been called into question.
With his national approval ratings plunging to a historic low of 13% in July, Merz was largely absent from the campaign trail in Saxony-Anhalt, making his first appearance on Monday just days before voters headed to the polls.
A YouGov poll last week found more than half of respondents believe Merz will be replaced before the next federal election.
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