Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has called on other parties to engage with it after preliminary results from Saxony-Anhalt’s state election gave the party its strongest result there but left it short of an outright parliamentary majority.
The AfD won 43.8% of the vote in Sunday’s election and is projected to take 39 seats in the 83-seat state parliament. It would need 42 seats to govern alone, although the final result has not yet been confirmed.
Beatrix von Storch, the AfD’s deputy parliamentary leader, told the BBC that the party was very close to taking power and argued that political opponents should not reject the voters’ decision. She said a refusal to work with the AfD could lead to political instability and potentially another election.
Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s leader in Saxony-Anhalt, described the result as a clear mandate to govern. He said the party began contacting other parties on Sunday night and that discussions could last days or weeks. The AfD would first approach all sides, he said, before assessing whether parliamentary groups or individual lawmakers were prepared to support it.
Coalition options remain uncertain
Most German political parties have ruled out cooperation with the AfD. Von Storch said the party was speaking with individuals in the conservative Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, whom she said were unhappy with their party’s position. The CDU won 17.2% of the vote in preliminary results.
One possible route under discussion is informal backing from the left-wing populist BSW, which is expected to win five seats, allowing the AfD to lead a minority government. The BSW is also restrictive on migration and supports importing Russian gas. Apart from the BSW, other parties have refused to cooperate with the AfD.
No far-right party has governed a German state since World War Two. Control of Saxony-Anhalt’s government would give the party authority over areas including policing and local education. The state, with a population of about 2.1 million, is in eastern Germany, where the AfD’s support is particularly strong.
Domestic intelligence classifies the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt as right-wing extremist, a designation rejected by Siegmund. Nationally, the AfD leads opinion polls ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives and the Social Democrats, according to the BBC. It also won the 2024 state election in neighbouring Thuringia but did not gain enough seats to take power.
Source: BBC News
