AfD takes 39 of 83 seats in Saxony-Anhalt and falls three short of a majority

The Alternative for Germany took 43.79 percent of the party-list vote in Saxony-Anhalt on 6 September and 39 of 83 seats in the new Landtag. That is three short of a majority. It is also the first time the party has finished first in a German state election.

Official figures from the state statistical office put the Christian Democratic Union at 17.23 percent and 15 seats. The Social Democrats took 9.30 percent and eight seats. The Greens took 8.93 percent and eight. Die Linke took 8.56 percent and eight. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance cleared the five-percent threshold with 5.27 percent and five seats. The Free Democrats fell to 2.58 percent and left the chamber.

Turnout reached 77.82 percent of 1,706,851 registered voters. That is 17.5 points above the 2021 figure of 60.3 percent and the highest participation in Saxony-Anhalt since reunification.

AfD list leader Ulrich Siegmund won his Genthin constituency with 49 percent. The party took 38 of 41 direct mandates. Reiner Kretschmann recorded the strongest first-vote result, 55.6 percent in Eisleben. The weakest AfD winner was Christian Mertens in Magdeburg III, at 35.2 percent. He still beat outgoing CDU minister-president Sven Schulze in that district.

Compared with 2021, the AfD more than doubled its list share from 20.8 percent. The CDU almost halved from 37.1 percent and lost 25 seats. Reuters reported that about 83,000 former CDU voters moved to the AfD. The outgoing CDU-SPD-FDP coalition cannot be rebuilt. The FDP is out of parliament.

The arithmetic now sits in a narrow band. The AfD holds 39 seats. Every other party that entered the Landtag holds 44 together. That five-party bloc is the only majority that excludes the AfD. CDU, SPD, Greens and Linke have all said they will not govern with the AfD. The state AfD branch has been classed as confirmed right-wing extremist by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution since 2023.

Siegmund claimed a governing mandate on election night and said he was open to agreements, without giving ground on the party programme. On Monday the AfD appealed to individual CDU deputies to break ranks. Union parliamentary leader Thorsten Frei rejected that in a ZDF interview: "We do not speak with right-wing extremists."

Sahra Wagenknecht called for issue-based work with all parties, including the AfD, under an independent minister-president. She described the firewall as a dead end. BSW's five seats decide whether a five-party majority against the AfD is stable, and whether an AfD-led minority cabinet could survive an abstention on the minister-president vote.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz's federal coalition absorbed the result as a verdict on Berlin. Schulze blamed part of the collapse on the federal picture and on Merz's low standing. Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski called the outcome a worrying sign. France has watched the same numbers with the same concern. Saxony-Anhalt sits on the Elbe, not on a border, but the party that now leads it wants to halt arms for Ukraine, end euro membership and deport large numbers of migrants.

Forschungsgruppe Wahlen's post-election breakdown showed the AfD at 50 percent among men and 40 percent among women. Support reached 45 percent among voters under 30, 50 percent among those aged 30 to 44, and 52 percent among those aged 45 to 59. The CDU was at 5 percent among voters under 30.

The Landtag will sit in Magdeburg. Forty-two votes elect a minister-president. If the firewall holds, the five remaining parties must agree on a person and a programme. If it cracks in one constituency or one conscience, Saxony-Anhalt becomes the first German state since 1945 in which a party of the far right holds the state chancellery. That choice now belongs to 44 deputies who ran against each other on Sunday.