How far-right AfD breakthrough may ‘cause absolute chaos’ in Germany
France 24 · LC · trust 51/100
Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) came out well ahead in Sunday’s regional elections in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, becoming the first far-right party to come close to gaining power at the regional level since World War II. The lead candidate of the party in the state, Ulrich Siegmund, said Monday that his party had already initiated talks towards building a governing majority.
By: Simon FEISTHAUER FOURNET Top candidate Ulrich Siegmund speaks at an election party of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) after the Saxony-Anhalt state elections in Magdeburg, eastern Germany on September 6, 2026. © Matthias Schrader, AP Germany 's far-right Alternative for Germany ( AfD ) won Sunday's regional election in Saxony-Anhalt with about 44 percent of the vote , far ahead of the ruling Christian Democrats ( CDU ). It is the closest a far-right party has come to power at the state level in Germany since the Second World War .
The AfD fell just three seats short of an outright majority. Lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund said Monday that talks were already under way to win over individual MPs from other parties willing to help form a governing majority.
The result strains Germany's "firewall" political consensus against working with the far right and much depends now on the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a populist left-leaning but immigration-sceptic and pro-Russia party who the AfD could potentially rely on to build a coalition.
FRANCE 24 spoke to Ed Turner, a German politics specialist at Aston University in Birmingham, about what the result means for Saxony-Anhalt and Germany.
FRANCE 24: The AfD didn't just win this election with its usual voters, it gained ground across almost every demographic in Saxony-Anhalt. What does that broader appeal tell us about how the party's support base is evolving in Germany?
Ed Turner: The AfD did particularly well amongst some of the groups which you'd expect. That means working class voters, voters who think their own economic situation isn’t good, voters with a relatively low level of qualification – and those groups are particularly well represented in Saxony-Anhalt.
On top of that, there is something specifically eastern German about some of its support. For example, in eastern Germany, for partly historic and cultural reasons, there is much less support for Germany's backing of Ukraine in its current war with Russia , and there's a sense of being second-class citizens and wanting to give voice to that dissatisfaction.
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In Germany, people talk about parties with cross-society appeal as being “Volkspartei” [“people’s party”], and in a way, in Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD is looking like a Volkspartei.
The AfD came within just a few seats of an absolute majority. Realistically, what are their options now?
I don't see a path to preventing them taking office because it would require not just the CDU to work with the left party – if the numbers had stacked up, then the left party would have tolerated a CDU government – but also the minor party, the BSW, which has said they think it would be undemocratic to see the AfD completely excluded from government.
At some point in the next 30 days, the parliament will assemble to vote on who the minister-president [the state premier] should be in a secret ballot, and there are probably two routes there through for the AfD: one is that they find the BSW abstains, or alternatively, there might be some rebels from the CDU in the secret ballot who either abstain or even vote for their candidates. Either which way, it's really difficult to imagine a scenario where they’re kept out.
What role could the BSW play in the aftermath of this election?
The BSW stands for Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht [Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance]. Wagenknecht was a long-standing left party parliamentarian who got her roots initially in east German communism but over time became associated with what some call a left-wing populism , where she would adopt left-wing economic positions, but at the same time quite conservative, right-wing positions on topics like immigration , and she also was very fiercely critical of Germany's support for Ukraine. That party missed out on seats in the last federal election, but does have a particular appeal in the east.
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They've come up with their own plan for Saxony-Anhalt, which is that there should be a non-political minister-president, and they should govern with whatever majorities – issue by issue – could be found. Nobody regards that as a serious proposition, but what it does do is it means they can say, “Well, we tried a different way, you lot weren't interested in it so we now need to do something else and maybe fall in behind the AfD.”
Their candidates also talked about some areas where they could see policy commonalities with the AfD, so that is a party which potentially could help the AfD.
What could the AfD implement at the local state level in terms of policy in Saxony-Anhalt?
In Germany, states have a very high level of autonomy when it comes to education and the AfD has already said it wants to radically overhaul the school curriculum, particularly on sensitive topics around history – they’ve mentioned doing “more Bismarck and less Hitler ”. They’ve also talked about unravelling integration of children with learning disabilities into mainstream education.
They've also mentioned defunding the Protestant Church because they think it takes too active a stance on social questions.
There's also the oversight…
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