Germany’s ’Firewall’ Against the Far Right Faces Test as AfD Seeks First State Victory

On Sunday, 2.1 million people in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, west of Berlin, will decide whether the Federal Republic retains a distinction it has held for more than seven decades. No radical right-wing party has governed Germany at the national, state or major-city level since 1945 — a record political scientist Wolfgang Merkel of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center describes as exceptional in Europe. Several polls show the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD, well ahead of its rivals before the state election. Taking control of a state government would be the biggest prize in the party's 13-year history — a shock to Germany's political system and, at the very least, a symbolic setback for Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

The numbers are what set this election apart from the AfD's previous near-misses. The state legislature has 83 seats, with 42 required for a majority. Polls throughout the summer have put the AfD at about 40%, while several parties are hovering around the 5% threshold below which votes do not translate into seats. If enough of them fall short — potentially leaving up to a fifth of all votes without representation — a party polling at roughly 40% could win a majority of seats. The AfD is openly seeking precisely that: an absolute majority that would make irrelevant the "firewall" under which all other parties refuse to govern with it. Civic groups are urging tactical voting to keep smaller parties above the threshold — an unusual campaign in a system that rarely asks voters to focus on the arithmetic of seats.

The AfD's candidate for state premier, Ulrich Siegmund, is 35, charismatic and outspoken about what is at stake. At a campaign barbecue in the small town of Möser, where supporters queued to meet him over beer and sausages, he told the Associated Press that this was a historic opportunity and that the party would make history in Saxony-Anhalt. Its slogan is "Everything is possible." Siegmund's priorities include a deportation drive targeting people in Germany illegally and removing what he describes as incentives to exploit the social welfare system; a lengthy process to withdraw the state from its regional public broadcaster, citing disinformation; allowing home schooling, which is currently not permitted in Germany; and requiring schools to display the national flag while banning them from officially flying the rainbow flag. The party also opposes taxpayer funding for Ukraine and says it would seek to lift sanctions on Russia — issues a state government cannot decide, but which indicate the voters the party is trying to attract.

The AfD's regional branch in Saxony-Anhalt is one of several that Germany's domestic intelligence agency has classified as a confirmed right-wing extremist group, a designation the party strongly rejects. Siegmund's response is one of reassurance: he says no one needs to be afraid and that every honest person in the state would benefit from an AfD-led government. His opponents argue that an AfD government would isolate a state dependent on investment and skilled workers from other parts of Germany and abroad.

The established parties have responded by changing their messenger. Chancellor Merz's Christian Democratic Union has led Saxony-Anhalt since 2002. Reiner Haseloff, 71, served as premier from 2011 and defeated an AfD challenge in 2021 as a popular incumbent. Haseloff had planned to complete his term, but amid strong regional support for the AfD, he announced in January that he would step down early. On January 28, the state legislature elected Economy Minister Sven Schulze, 46, as his successor — comfortably, in the first round, with 58 votes from a coalition holding 56 seats. The aim was to give Schulze the advantage of incumbency: he enters Sunday's election as premier rather than merely as the CDU's candidate. Haseloff, who has ruled out any cooperation with the AfD and says Schulze is equally clear on the issue, has also cautioned that polling in eastern Germany provides only a rough picture. A January poll put the AfD at 39% and the CDU at 26%; a June survey gave the CDU 34% and the AfD 30%, before the summer polls shifted again.

The national political climate favors the challenger. In last year's federal election, the AfD won 20.8% — the strongest postwar result for a far-right party — and became the largest opposition force in the Bundestag. It performed best in the formerly communist eastern states, and Saxony-Anhalt, one of Germany's less prosperous regions, is typical of them, with a struggling economy, social tensions and a shrinking population. Merz's government has struggled to convince voters that it can revive the economy, while the chancellor himself has spoken of a "widespread moroseness" that his coalition must dispel. The AfD has expanded its appeal beyond migration to broader public discontent, with its rise in Saxony-Anhalt partly driven by TikTok, where it out-organises rival parties. Its only executive office so far is a county administration in neighbouring Thuringia, which it won in 2023. The AfD led the 2024 state election there but was kept out of power by the firewall.

What a Siegmund government could do would be both constrained and significant under Germany's federal system. The 16 states have extensive powers over security, policing and education — areas where the AfD's home-schooling and flag policies would have their most immediate impact. Foreign policy and sanctions are handled at the federal level. The more significant consequence would be political: proof that the firewall could be overcome through electoral arithmetic rather than coalition-building, creating a template for two more eastern German contests. Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern will vote two weeks later, on September 20.

Three outcomes are possible on Sunday. The AfD could win the most votes but fall short of the 42 seats needed for a majority, prompting the other parties to form an unwieldy coalition to keep it out of power, as happened in Thuringia. This is the likeliest result if support for smaller parties holds. The AfD could also win an outright majority because of wasted votes, allowing Siegmund to become premier without a coalition partner — the scenario Berlin fears most. Alternatively, Schulze's incumbency and a late consolidation of support behind the CDU could narrow the gap enough to make the question of a majority irrelevant. The outcome will depend less on the AfD's upper limit, which polls have already measured, than on whether the Left, Social Democrats, Free Democrats and Greens clear the 5% threshold — and whether Haseloff is right that the polls have yet to determine the AfD's true level of support.

Originally published on HNGN