AfD takes 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt and still cannot form a government

The Alternative for Germany finished first in a German state election for the first time on 6 September, then immediately ran into the arithmetic that has defined German politics since the party entered parliaments a decade ago.

Preliminary official results from the state election office in Halle put the AfD on 43.8 percent of the second vote in Saxony-Anhalt. That is more than double the 20.8 percent it won in 2021 and the strongest result any party has recorded in the state since reunification. The party takes 39 of the 83 seats in the Magdeburg Landtag. An absolute majority is 42.

The Christian Democratic Union, which has led every government in Saxony-Anhalt since 2002, fell to 17.2 percent and 15 seats. Five years earlier it had 37.1 percent. State premier Sven Schulze told colleagues on Monday that the CDU no longer holds a governing mandate of its own.

Three parties on the left each landed near 9 percent: the Social Democrats on 9.3, the Greens on 8.9, and Die Linke on 8.6, eight seats apiece. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance crossed the 5 percent line with 5.3 percent and five seats. The Free Democrats, partners in Schulze's outgoing three-party coalition, took 2.6 percent and left the chamber.

Turnout was 77.8 percent, up from 60.3 percent in 2021 and the highest recorded in Saxony-Anhalt since 1990.

Direct seats tell a sharper story

The first vote, which elects constituency members, was even more one-sided. The AfD won 38 of 41 constituencies. Die Linke held three seats in Halle and Magdeburg. The CDU won none.

Reiner Kretschmann took Eisleben with 55.6 percent. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider won Querfurt with 54.9 percent. Jonas Dirk in Weißenfels and Matthias Büttner in Staßfurt each recorded 53.4 percent. AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund, 35, won Genthin with 49 percent against the CDU's Thomas Staudt. Christian Mertens took Magdeburg III with 35.2 percent and beat Schulze in his own constituency.

MDR's later tally said the AfD finished first in all 218 municipalities. The gap between the AfD and the CDU was 26.6 points, or about 349,000 votes on one count compiled from the official file.

A chamber that cannot close

German mainstream parties still refuse to govern with the AfD. That policy, called the Brandmauer or firewall, now collides with a chamber in which the AfD is the largest group and every other combination is awkward.

The old CDU-SPD-FDP coalition is gone because the FDP is out. A CDU-led bloc with the SPD, Greens and Linke would reach 39 seats, still three short. Adding the BSW's five seats would produce a majority that runs from the CDU to Die Linke and Wagenknecht's party. The CDU has spent years refusing formal work with Die Linke. Schulze would need both that concession and the BSW.

Siegmund claimed a mandate to govern on election night. National co-leader Tino Chrupalla said Siegmund would be the next premier. Siegmund also ruled out a coalition built on large concessions and dismissed a BSW idea of a cross-party premier as muddle when he appeared on ZDF.

On Monday the party appealed to individual CDU deputies in Magdeburg to break ranks. Reuters reported that about 83,000 former CDU voters had moved to the AfD in this contest.

What the result does outside Magdeburg

Saxony-Anhalt has 2.1 million people and little weight in the Bundesrat on its own. The signal is national. Chancellor Friedrich Merz's federal coalition is already unpopular. Schulze blamed part of the CDU collapse on Berlin and on a stagnant German economy.

French and Polish officials treated the result as a warning. Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski called it a very worrying sign. The AfD's platform in the state campaign included mass deportations, an end to military aid for Ukraine, and an exit from the euro.

The state domestic intelligence service still classifies the Saxony-Anhalt AfD as confirmed right-wing extremist. That label does not bar it from taking seats. It does make any CDU opening more costly for Merz, whose own party must face further eastern elections.

The next move sits with Schulze, Siegmund and 83 deputies who now have to decide whether Saxony-Anhalt gets a minority government, a previously unthinkable five-party bargain, or a second vote. The seat file already says the first option the AfD wanted, sole power, is closed.