The story so far: The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won a major victory in the regional election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. It won 39 seats of the 83-member state parliament, falling just three seats short of an absolute majority.
Who is the AfD?
The AfD was established in 2013 as a direct rejoinder to then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policies on the Euro, which advocated for fiscal austerity and structural reforms in order to keep the Eurozone intact. To criticisms of such policies, she would often say that these reforms were ‘without alternative’ (alternativlos), leading to the emergence of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party.
While the party was initially mobilised along the lines of being anti-Euro (against the single currency regime), Ms. Merkel’s open-door refugee policy in 2015 led the party to be increasingly consolidated around anti-immigration lines. One of its most popular and controversial policy demands has been the concept of ‘remigration’, which advocates for the return of non-ethnic German citizens, particularly those from Muslim countries, to their country of origin.
These views and policies have led to the party being branded as extremist — with it often being compared to Hitler’s Nazi party (a branding that the AfD systematically rejects). The Verfassungsschutz, or the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has branded the party as a ‘right-wing extremist’ organisation. The agency stated that the party did not consider citizens of a “migration background from predominantly Muslim countries” as equal members of the German nation. Other political parties have also adopted a similar view by invoking a ‘political firewall’ or Brandmauer against AfD, wherein they refuse to co-operate or ally with the party in any way whatsoever.
In Saxony-Anhalt, the party had been campaigning on multiple demands. With respect to migration policy, it has propounded remigration as well as an overhaul of the refugee policy. It has said that it will start deporting irregular migrants from day one and that mass detention facilities would be expanded. Ulrich Siegmund, who was the lead candidate for the AfD in the State election and won 49 % of the votes, has listed among his top priorities “a deportation offensive” and dropping incentives for people to come to Germany to “exploit our social system”.
With respect to education, the party has said that it will make homeschooling, which is currently banned, legal; that the school curriculum would be reformed, as it is ‘overtly focused’ on the Nazi regime; and that instead of rainbow flags, only the German national flag would be hoisted in schools. It has also floated the idea of separate classes/schools for children of asylum seekers.
It has said that it will change the state’s slogan of ‘Think Modern’ to ‘Think German’. Some critics have drawn parallels between AfD’s political playbook and U.S. President Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) model, where the party reiterates German identity in purely ethnic terms, drawing on earlier imaginings or nostalgia for a brighter and stronger nation, by promoting policies which isolate the country from regional and larger world groupings, mainly the European Union, using ethno-nationalist tropes.
The party has also repeatedly downplayed the effect of climate change; in Saxony-Anhalt, it has vowed to halt wind farms, even as the region is one of the leading states in Germany’s transition to renewable energy.
What happened in Saxony-Anhalt?
Germany has 16 federal states, with each state conducting its own election every five years. Saxony-Anhalt is one of the smallest states, which lies towards the eastern side. The state used to be under communist rule as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), till the 1990s, when the country was finally reunified after the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, eastern states have often felt left out and ignored by the ruling ‘western’ establishment. Most former GDR citizens allege that they remain underrepresented at higher levels of government and in media and have less economic benefits than the western region.
The 2020 Annual Report on the Status of German Unity, released in 2021, stated that while the eastern region has tremendously improved its economic fortunes since reunification, it still has not caught up to western Germany’s urban living standards. Eastern full-time employees earned about 86% of the western average. More importantly, the report talked about how there was still a notion of dissatisfaction among former GDR citizens, often shaped by the impact of the previous communist rule, the intense economic restructuring following reunification, as well as cultural changes.
The AfD has been quick to capture and exacerbate this sentiment; the party has been making steady gains in the eastern region for quite some time now. In 2017, it became the second-largest party in the region, winning 21.9% of the vote, while across Germany as a whole it only had a vote share of 12.6%.
What is the significance of the win?
While the state of Saxony-Anhalt is relatively small, with just 1.7 million voters out of 59 million voters nationwide, the result holds immense significance.
Domestically, if the AfD is to form a government in the state, it will have overarching powers regarding education and security issues. It will also get four seats in the upper house of the German Parliament, the Bundesrat, which represents the 16 states of the country. However, since the party falls short of an absolute majority, it is yet unclear how it expects to govern. While Mr. Siegmund had earlier remarked that the party wouldn’t engage in “games” such as a minority government, he has now said that he will be waiting with an “outstretched hand”. Moreover, the ‘firewall’ in German Parliament further complicates coalition talks.
AfD’s rise in the elections is also an indictment of the government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The cost of living crisis, stoked by inflation due to rising energy prices because of the war in West Asia and sanctions on Russia, has hit the state of Saxony-Anhalt quite hard. The people in the country generally feel that the Chancellor has not held up his promise to ensure fiscal discipline and revive the stagnating German economy. Mr. Merz has said that he was “deeply shocked” by the election results.
Internationally, the rise of the AfD spells trouble for the EU, as the party has been quite Euro-sceptic. It has often remarked that leaving the EU is necessary for its reforms to be implemented. At the same time, it has also said that a hard break would be counterproductive and that it would be better to ease into a looser organisation of European states. It has also advocated leaving the single currency system.
The party has also been severely critical of the support for Ukraine in the ongoing Russia- Ukraine war and has said that it will push back against sanctions on Russia, and revive energy deals and economic ties with Moscow.
What next?
Germany has two more state elections coming up, with the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, also a former GDR state, and the capital city of Berlin both going to the polls on September 20. The AfD is leading the opinion polls in the former, with its current win bound to give local leadership in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern a major boost.
Published – September 08, 2026 11:58 am IST
