AfD takes 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt and still lacks three seats to govern

Alternative for Germany won 43.8% of the list vote in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, 6 September, more than double its 2021 share, and still finished three seats short of a majority. Official results give the party 39 of 83 seats in the Magdeburg Landtag. The Christian Democratic Union, which had led the state for 24 years, fell to 17.2% and 15 seats.

Turnout was 77.8%, the highest for a German state election since Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in 1998. AfD took 38 of 41 constituency seats. Reiner Kretschmann won Eisleben with 55.6% of first votes. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider took Querfurt with 54.9%. Lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund won Genthin with 49%. The weakest AfD constituency win was Christian Mertens in Magdeburg III, at 35.2%, against Minister-President Sven Schulze of the CDU.

A hung chamber

SPD took 9.3% and eight seats. Greens 8.9% and eight. Die Linke 8.6% and eight. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance crossed the 5% line with 5.3% and five seats. FDP failed at 2.6%. A bloc of CDU, SPD, Greens and Linke also totals 39 seats. Both camps therefore sit three short of 42. Siegmund had said before the vote that he would run for minister-president only with an absolute majority. After the count he claimed a mandate to govern and, from 8 September, offered talks to the CDU and the BSW.

CDU, SPD, Greens and Linke have a firewall against coalition with AfD. The state branch of AfD is classed as confirmed right-wing extremist by Saxony-Anhalt’s domestic intelligence office. About 83,000 former CDU voters moved to AfD, Reuters reported. Schulze blamed part of the collapse on Berlin, where Chancellor Friedrich Merz is pushing fiscal and labour changes that have driven his ratings down. Merz said he would continue those reforms. Chancellery minister Nina Warken called the result a caesura for the CDU.

What the neighbours heard

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski called the outcome a very worrying sign. French officials treated the eastern German result as an omen for votes due elsewhere in Europe next year. AfD’s state platform includes tighter migration rules, separate school classes for refugee children and limits on public Islamic expression. The party also wants to cut support for Ukraine and leave the euro.

The arithmetic in Magdeburg is now the story. AfD can govern only if enough CDU or BSW deputies break the firewall, sit through confidence votes, or tolerate a minority cabinet. The other parties can lock AfD out only if they invent a four-party arrangement that none of them campaigned on, or if BSW supplies the missing votes. Siegmund’s offer on Tuesday makes that choice public. The seat sheet does not.