Germany’s right-wing Alternative for Germany party scored a historic election victory Sunday, taking nearly 44% of the vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt and dealing a devastating defeat to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s governing conservatives.Preliminary official results showed the AfD winning 43.8% of the vote, more than double the 17.2% captured by Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The AfD gained 23 percentage points from the previous state election in 2021, while the CDU lost nearly 20 points. Voter turnout was 77.8%.The result gives the AfD 39 of the 83 seats in the state parliament — just three short of the 42 needed for an outright majority — leaving Germany facing the possibility of an AfD-led state government for the first time.“We have made history in this state,” AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund said after the results came in.Siegmund said Monday the party had received a clear mandate to govern and would begin talks aimed at assembling a stable majority.The result presents Merz and Germany’s mainstream political parties with an immediate dilemma: whether to maintain the longstanding political “firewall” under which the CDU and other major parties refuse to cooperate with the AfD.AfD national co-leader Tino Chrupalla called on CDU legislators Monday to abandon that policy and support what he described as a “centre-right conservative majority” in Saxony-Anhalt.“Politics always means compromise,” Chrupalla told German broadcaster ARD, according to Reuters. He said the CDU must consider what conclusions to draw from its disastrous result and argued that “partisan games really ought to be a thing of the past.”Merz, however, gave no indication Monday that his government or party was prepared to tear down the firewall.“We are all deeply shocked,” Merz said following meetings of senior CDU officials in Berlin.The chancellor described the result as “the most serious election defeat that the CDU has had for years, for decades,” and acknowledged the vote represented something much bigger than a setback in a single eastern state.“Something has changed not only in Saxony-Anhalt, but throughout Germany,” Merz said..Merz said the CDU would have to draw consequences from the defeat but rejected suggestions he should abandon his political agenda.“Giving up is not an option for me,” he said.The chancellor also sought to reassure Germany’s European and NATO allies about what an AfD-led state government could mean.“Our institutions are resilient and stable,” Merz said, adding Germany would continue to uphold its constitution and democratic institutions.Merz also vowed there would be no change in his federal government's policy toward Russia and Ukraine, despite the AfD campaigning against Berlin’s military and financial support for Kyiv.He said he would not “budge one millimeter” from his conviction that Germany must defend its freedom against Russia.That could become an increasingly important dividing line between the federal government and the AfD.The AfD has called for an end to German support for Ukraine, tougher immigration and deportation policies and eventually abandoning the euro. Its Saxony-Anhalt branch has been classified as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization by the state domestic intelligence agency, a designation the party rejects as politically motivated.Despite its decisive election victory, the AfD cannot automatically form a government.Its 39 seats leave it short of a majority, meaning Siegmund must find support from outside the party to become state premier.One potential route involves the populist left-wing BSW, which won 5.3% of the vote and five seats. Although ideologically different on many issues, BSW and the AfD share opposition to mass immigration and German support for Ukraine.BSW founder Sahra Wagenknecht warned the other parties Monday against constructing another coalition solely to prevent the AfD from governing.“Even the mere attempt to forge another ‘firewall’ coalition would be an affront to the voters,” Wagenknecht said, according to Reuters.BSW would not necessarily have to formally join an AfD coalition. Its legislators could potentially abstain during a vote for state premier, lowering the hurdle Siegmund would have to clear, although he has previously rejected running a minority government.The CDU's Saxony-Anhalt candidate Sven Schulze acknowledged that his party had lost its mandate to govern.“We have as the CDU no mandate to govern anymore, we are the opposition,” Schulze said Monday. “The mandate to govern now lies with the AfD.”.The magnitude of the result is particularly damaging for Merz because the AfD did not merely edge out the CDU. It received more than two-and-a-half times the CDU vote, with Reuters reporting about 83,000 former CDU voters switched to the AfD.The election is also being watched closely outside Germany.French Finance Minister Roland Lescure called the result a “very, very worrying signal,” while Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski described it as “a very worrying sign.”AfD leaders portrayed the result differently — as evidence that the political establishment's strategy of isolating the party is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.National co-leader Alice Weidel called the victory a milestone and said the AfD would now aim to capture at least 40% nationally when Germans next elect a federal government in 2029.The immediate battle, however, will be fought in Magdeburg.The AfD has decisively won the election and claims the right to govern, but Germany’s established parties must now decide whether to cooperate with it, find another combination capable of governing without it, or risk a prolonged political stalemate.For Merz, the result also transforms what was a state election into a national political crisis. His CDU suffered one of the worst defeats in its history while the AfD demonstrated that, at least in parts of eastern Germany, it is no longer simply an opposition protest party but a potential party of government.
