Saxony-Anhalt: Far-right AfD secures huge lead in key vote

Co-leader of Germany’s Left Party Heidi Reichinnek said her party will not cooperate with the AfD in the wake of the Saxony-Anhalt elections under any circumstances.

She called the AfD a “right-wing extremist” party.

“We will do our best to prevent the AfD from reaching a position of power, but we cannot do this on our own,” Reichinnek told German public broadcaster ARD, while also calling all other parties to keep up the so-called “firewall,” the policy of excluding any political cooperation with the AfD.

“Many people here are scared, people with migrant backgrounds, queer people. I’d like to tell them: You are not alone,” Reichinnek said.

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) has signaled that it could cooperate with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on individual policy issues in Saxony-Anhalt.

“We will always decide on the substance,” BSW lead candidate Claudia Wittig told Germany’s public broadcaster ARD.

She used the example of energy prices, saying that such issues “can be done together with the AfD,” while there may be less common ground in other areas.

Wittig also argued that, given the AfD's strong result, it would be “completely undemocratic not to involve them in government in some way.”

At the same time, she rejected both AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund and incumbent Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Premier Sven Schulze as potential heads of the next state government.

“We want a nonpartisan premier,” Wittig said.

She also argued that her leftist populist party could help bridge an increasingly polarized political landscape.

The BSW, founded in 2024 around former Left Party politician Sahra Wagenknecht, advocates for greater social and economic equality but also calls for more restrictive positions on migration and criticizes  Germany's foreign policy.

Current projections put the party at exactly 5.0%, right on the threshold needed to win seats, but a minor shift in numbers could see it miss out on the state parliament.

There was massive jubilation at the Greens’ election event in Magdeburg when the party’s own result appeared on screen, DW correspondent Giulia Saudelli reported. Some staff members were in tears of joy and relief.

The Greens reached 8.9% in the first projection, significantly outperforming pre-election surveys that had generally put them at around 5%. If the result holds, it would be a historic result for the party in Saxony-Anhalt.

Lead candidate Susan Sziborra-Seidlitz said civil society had placed its hopes in the Greens.

“We will not disappoint that hope,” she said, adding that the party would “always be the antagonist of the right” in the state parliament.

Greens co-leader Felix Banaszak also welcomed his own party’s result.

“Many had already written off the Greens,” Banaszak said, adding that the party was now on course for its best-ever state election result in Saxony-Anhalt. “That fills me with joy and pride.”

At the same time, he said he was deeply concerned by the AfD's strong gains.

“These are dramatic conditions that are emerging here,” Banaszak said.

DW reporter Saudelli also reported shocked faces as party members saw the AfD and CDU results and considered the difficult task of forming a government without the far-right Alternative for Germany.

In the ballroom of the hotel in Magdeburg serving as the CDU’s headquarters, “there are almost as many journalists as party officials,” says DW correspondent Bernd Riegert.

Only die-hard supporters came out to witness the predictable debacle of Germany’s center-right conservatives.

“It’s a bit like being in the waiting room at the dentist,” a CDU supporter said with a bitter smile. “You know it’s going to hurt, but you can’t run away.”

It’s not yet clear who will form the next state government. What is certain for now is that CDU, with its share of the vote halved, is no longer the dominant political force in Saxony-Anhalt.

“A disaster, a disaster,” murmured a young CDU supporter who put up posters during the campaign.

The projected seat results suggest the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is set to win 39 seats in the new Saxony-Anhalt parliament, three short of an absolute majority and the ability to govern on its own.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s ruling CDU is projected to win 16 seats, its worst result in Saxony-Anhalt since German reunification. The Greens and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) are expected to receive eight and seven seats, respectively.

While the results are subject to change, it currently appears difficult for either the AfD or the other parties to form a coalition.

According to a poll by German public broadcaster ARD, the only party where the majority of voters believe the AfD should be in government is the left-wing populist BSW, which is projected to win five seats in parliament. However, only 57% of BSW supporters hold that view.

Saxony-Anhalt premier and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) lead candidate Sven Schulze said exit polls showed the scale of the setback for his party, putting the conservatives at 18.5%.

“That is democracy, people have sent a signal,” he said.

He congratulated the Alternative for Germany (AfD) on winning the election and said it was now on the CDU to find a way to deal with the outcome.

Schulze described the campaign as exceptionally tough.

“I have never experienced such an election campaign in my 25 years in politics,” he said.

Meanwhile, CDU Secretary-General Franziska Hoppermann ruled out any cooperation with the AfD.

“We will not work with radicals, especially not with right-wing radicals,” she told the German state broadcaster.

She also dismissed speculation about this result affecting the future of Germany’s chancellor and CDU leader Friedrich Merz.

“No, there will be no discussion,” she said.

Meanwhile, Chancellery Minister Nina Warken, a close ally of Merz, described the result as a “turning point” for the CDU and a “very, very difficult result.” She said reforms launched by the ruling coalition on the federal level had yet to take full effect.

Ulrich Siegmund, the head of the far-right AfD party in Saxony-Anhalt, celebrated AfD’s apparent victory after the exit polls were made public.

“We’ve made history, we need to say this clearly,” he told German public broadcaster ARD.

Siegmund also said the result was also a “signal” for Germany’s federal government, led by CDU politician Friedrich Merz.

Speaking about potentially building a coalition with one of the other parties — most of which ruled out working with the far-right party ahead of the election — Siegmund said the AfD is open to cooperation, in its own terms.

“We will not give away our basic positions for the sake of being in power,” he said.

With polls closing in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, exit polls indicate that the far-right AfD party has secured 44.5% of the votes, with the center-right CDU at 18.5%.

 

You can keep up with our live coverage of the Saxony-Anhalt election on our website, in this live blog, and in our YouTube stream here:

Ahead of the first projections, polling institutes are under particular scrutiny in Saxony-Anhalt. Five years ago, pre-election surveys differed significantly from the final result: the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) performed much better than expected, while the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) did considerably worse.

Roland Abold, managing director of Infratest dimap, told DW that polling institutes had therefore examined the race particularly closely this time.

“We can say that there was relatively little movement in the polls before the election,” he said.

Recent surveys put the AfD at around 40 to 41% and the governing CDU at roughly 22 to 23%. The Left Party and Social Democrats are also expected to enter parliament, while the Greens are hovering around the 5% threshold needed to win seats.

Abold also said one problem seen in earlier elections appears to have eased: “Regarding the polls beforehand, one can say that the issue of people not admitting that they intend to vote for certain parties has actually declined.”

Why are far-right parties attracting growing support, and what does that mean for Germany’s political future? DW’s Christine Mundwa explores these questions with British-German historian and writer Katja Hoyer, LA Times reporter Erik Kirschbaum, and DW’s Matthew Moore.

Saxony-Anhalt’s economic reputation is at risk as the far-right Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) eyes victory in the eastern German state, business experts have warned.

Economist Monika Schnitzer said investment and skilled workers from abroad could be more difficult to attract to the state.

“Given the party’s election program, it can be expected that if the AfD takes over the government, the state will become significantly less attractive as a location for skilled workers and companies,” Schnitzer told the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper.

Michael Hüther, director of the German Economic Institute (IW) think tank, warned: “Anyone competing for foreign skilled workers must not strengthen a party that openly calls for their expulsion.”

He told the Rheinische Post that without immigration, demographic trends could cause the state’s working-age population to shrink by around a quarter by 2045, leaving more than one non-working person for every person of working age.”

Christian Bruch, chief executive of Siemens Energy, cautioned that the AfD’s energy policies calling for a return to coal and nuclear power were also bad for German industry.

“Nostalgic politics keeps setting us further back,” he said.

All eyes are on Magdeburg, the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt.

When broadcasters release their first projections at 6 p.m., Chancellor Friedrich Merz will be watching closely from CDU headquarters in Berlin, about 150 kilometers to the northeast.

For Merz, the vote is shaping up as an early test of a pledge he made as opposition leader: to cut support for the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) in half, in part by taking a hard line on immigration.

Projections suggest the strategy has yet to deliver the results Merz promised, with the AfD on course to become the strongest party in Saxony-Anhalt.

The campaign unfolded against a backdrop of deep dissatisfaction with the federal government, so much so that Merz was largely kept out of the spotlight and made few campaign appearances.

Perhaps reflecting the political sensitivity of the result, the chancellor will not personally comment on the election results Sunday or Monday, according to party and government sources.

“There are barricades around the Old Theater in Magdeburg, as reporters and politicians gather to take in tonight’s potentially historic result” of the Saxony-Anhalt election, DW’s Matthew Moore reports from the AfD election headquarters.

“Around 1,800 police officers have been brought in from other German states to boost security in Magdeburg this weekend.”

“The intermittent barking of sniffer dogs fills the air,” our reporter says.

“Every bag is being checked twice.”

“There is a tension in the air,” Moore adds. “It feels less an election count and more like a high-security summit of G7 leaders.”