Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) secured around 44 percent in the Saxony-Anhalt state election, more than doubling its prior share and taking 39 of 83 seats amid 78 percent turnout. The party now leads tense talks to form a government, short of a majority, with plans for border closures, ending migrant benefits, and mass deportations in its first 100 days. What is your most up-to-date and in-depth assessment?

DE-01, Germany Agent:

The short version is: this is not simply an unusually large AfD victory in one eastern state. It is the clearest evidence yet that Germany’s postwar political “firewall” is approaching a structural stress test. But the equally important fact is that 43.8% is not 50% + 1, and 39 of 83 seats is not a governing majority. The next phase—who can assemble, tolerate, or obstruct an AfD-led government—may matter more than the headline result.

One factual correction first: the latest preliminary official result is 43.8% for the AfD, 39 of 83 seats, against 17.2% for the CDU. Turnout was exceptionally high, around 78% according to the latest regional reporting.

1. The magnitude is more important than the absolute number

The AfD’s previous result in 2021 was about 20.8%. It has therefore more than doubled its vote share. The CDU, meanwhile, has collapsed from 37.1% to 17.2%.

That tells us something important: this was not merely an AfD gain caused by unusually low turnout or tactical protest voting.

Turnout was extremely high. The electorate did not simply stay home while the AfD mobilised its base. Large numbers of voters participated and gave the party their vote.

And the AfD did not merely win; it destroyed the CDU’s previous political position as the natural governing party of Saxony-Anhalt.

The parliamentary arithmetic is:

Party	Seats
AfD	39
CDU	15
SPD	8
Greens	8
Left	8
BSW	5
Total	83

A majority therefore requires 42 seats. The AfD is only three seats short.

That three-seat gap is politically enormous.

2. The real story: the firewall has changed from a principle into a governing problem

For decades, Germany’s mainstream parties could say:

AfD cannot govern because nobody will work with it.

That was relatively easy when the AfD obtained 10–20% of the vote.

It becomes considerably harder when it obtains 44%.

This creates a dilemma for the CDU in particular.

If the CDU refuses cooperation, it may have to participate in an awkward coalition with parties on the left while the party that received almost half the vote remains outside government.

If it cooperates with the AfD, it breaks the firewall and potentially normalises the party as a legitimate governing partner.

If it tolerates an AfD minority government, it risks something arguably even more consequential: AfD policies becoming dependent on occasional CDU or BSW votes without those parties formally assuming responsibility for the government.

The AfD therefore does not necessarily need to obtain a conventional coalition immediately.

It needs to demonstrate that the firewall is porous.

That is the strategic objective.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has categorically rejected CDU cooperation with the AfD, reaffirming the firewall.

But Merz now has a problem of his own making: the CDU’s attempt to compete with the AfD by moving rightward on issues such as migration has not stopped the AfD’s advance.

In Saxony-Anhalt, it coincided with the CDU’s collapse.

That should be taken extremely seriously in Berlin.

3. The AfD’s greatest achievement is not electoral—it is agenda-setting

The AfD has succeeded in making migration, deportation, borders, security and national identity the central axis around which other parties must position themselves.

This is strategically much more important than whether its first proposed government actually survives.

Consider the sequence:

AfD raises immigration as the defining issue.
Mainstream parties adopt tougher migration positions.
AfD argues that the mainstream has finally admitted it was right.
Voters then ask: Why vote for the copy rather than the original?
AfD becomes stronger.

This is one reason the CDU’s defeat deserves more attention than the AfD’s victory.

The German centre-right has discovered that policy convergence does not necessarily produce electoral convergence.

Indeed, it can have the opposite effect.

4. But there is a huge misconception about what an AfD state government could actually do

This is where the rhetoric about the proposed “first 100 days” needs to be separated from constitutional reality.

The AfD can campaign on:

border closures,
sharply reducing migration,
ending particular migrant benefits,
accelerating deportations,
changing school curricula,
strengthening state policing,
restructuring public broadcasting or cultural policy,
challenging federal migration policy.

But Saxony-Anhalt cannot simply seal Germany’s international borders by itself.

The German Basic Law gives the Federation exclusive legislative authority over immigration, emigration and border protection.

Likewise, asylum processing is fundamentally federal: the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees handles asylum decisions, while Länder authorities implement deportations and related measures.

So an AfD state government could become a highly aggressive executor of existing federal migration law, but it cannot unilaterally rewrite the German asylum system.

That distinction is critical.

The politically explosive scenario is therefore not:

“Saxony-Anhalt closes Germany’s borders.”

It is:

“Saxony-Anhalt uses every competence available to a Land government to push migration enforcement to the constitutional limit.”

That could still have considerable practical consequences.

5. Deportations are different—and potentially more consequential

Here the AfD has more room to act.

German law assigns Länder authorities an important role in executing deportations. The Residence Act explicitly provides for central authorities in the Länder responsible for carrying them out.

But deportation is not equivalent to:

“foreign national = deportable.”

There are legal constraints concerning asylum status, individual circumstances, non-refoulement, human rights and conditions in the receiving country. German law itself contains explicit prohibitions on deportation where persecution or serious harm would result.

Consequently, an AfD government could potentially increase enforcement substantially, but a slogan such as “mass deportations in the first 100 days” should not be interpreted as meaning that tens of thousands of people can simply be removed administratively without judicial and legal constraints.

The political conflict would probably move quickly into the courts.

And that is where this becomes interesting.

6. The AfD’s first real battle may be with the German state itself

An AfD-led government would confront:

administrative law;
constitutional courts;
federal ministries;
EU law;
human-rights obligations;
existing civil-service structures;
police and judicial institutions;
budgetary limitations;
coalition/parliamentary arithmetic.

This is why winning an election and governing are radically different achievements.

The AfD has accumulated enormous electoral power without having comparable experience running a Land government.

An AfD government would therefore become an experiment watched by the entire country.

Every failed promise could weaken it.

But—and this is crucial—every successful implementation could strengthen it nationally.

That makes Saxony-Anhalt politically dangerous for both sides.

7. The BSW is potentially the most important actor

The five-seat Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht is disproportionately important because the parliamentary configuration is otherwise extremely difficult.

BSW has overlap with AfD on several issues:

opposition to large-scale immigration;
hostility to parts of the established political order;
scepticism toward military support for Ukraine;
a more conciliatory approach toward Russia.

Reuters reports that BSW representatives have indicated willingness to negotiate with all parties, including AfD.

This is a remarkable development.

Because BSW is not merely another small party.

It potentially represents a bridge between political camps that previously appeared structurally incompatible.

And that is exactly what the AfD needs.

It does not necessarily need BSW to become an official coalition partner.

Even toleration of an AfD minority government could be transformative.

8. The most likely near-term outcome is therefore not an AfD super-government

I would rank the scenarios approximately like this:

Scenario A — AfD minority government

High political significance, uncertain durability.

The AfD attempts to elect Ulrich Siegmund and governs without a conventional majority, relying issue-by-issue on BSW, individual CDU deputies or parliamentary abstentions.

This would be the most important breakthrough because it would demonstrate that the AfD can exercise executive power without formally breaking the firewall.

Scenario B — CDU defectors / informal cooperation

Politically explosive.

Only three additional seats are required.

The AfD will therefore have an enormous incentive to cultivate individual CDU parliamentarians.

The CDU leadership will have an equally enormous incentive to prevent this.

Scenario C — AfD–BSW arrangement

Ideologically strange but not impossible.

Migration and Russia/Ukraine policy provide potential common ground, but economic and institutional differences are substantial.

Scenario D — Anti-AfD coalition

CDU + SPD + Greens = 31 seats.

Even adding the Left gives 39.

They still cannot reach 42 without BSW.

So a conventional anti-AfD coalition would require a particularly complicated arrangement involving BSW or some other parliamentary mechanism.

Scenario E — prolonged deadlock / new election

Not my first choice, but increasingly plausible if everyone refuses the compromises required by the arithmetic.

9. The real national loser is Friedrich Merz

This election should not be interpreted simply as:

East Germany is becoming AfD territory.

That is too easy.

The much more serious question is:

Why did a CDU-led federal government fail to prevent this outcome after adopting substantially tougher positions on migration and security?

The answer appears to involve several overlapping factors.

Economic dissatisfaction

Eastern Germany still contains regions with lower incomes, weaker industrial bases and demographic problems.

State capacity

Voters see problems involving bureaucracy, housing, infrastructure, public services and security—and often interpret them as evidence that the political system is incapable of delivering.

Migration

Migration is not necessarily the largest objective economic problem facing Germany, but it has become an extremely powerful symbolic proxy for state control.

Cultural alienation

For some voters, AfD voting is an assertion that:

“The political class no longer speaks for people like me.”

Anti-Berlin sentiment

The election also functions as a referendum on the federal political establishment.

Reuters reports that dissatisfaction with Merz’s government was particularly pronounced in the economically struggling eastern regions.

So Berlin should be careful about interpreting the result as merely ideological extremism.

The AfD is exploiting genuine governance failures.

That does not make its proposed remedies good.

It makes them politically potent.

10. The most dangerous mistake would be to dismiss the 44% as “far-right protest voting”

That explanation is becoming inadequate.

The AfD has now demonstrated that it can construct a cross-class electoral coalition.

Its support is no longer confined to one narrow socioeconomic group. Reporting from the election points to particularly strong support among economically insecure and less-educated voters, but the party’s appeal extends considerably beyond those categories.

This means Germany is entering a different phase.

The question is no longer:

“Can the AfD break through?”

It has broken through.

The question is:

Can Germany’s mainstream parties offer an alternative compelling enough to make AfD support unnecessary?

That requires considerably more than saying “we will not cooperate with them.”

11. There is also a Russian dimension that Berlin should not underestimate

The AfD’s success intersects with a broader European political struggle over:

Ukraine;
sanctions against Russia;
energy costs;
NATO;
national sovereignty;
relations with Washington;
EU integration.

The party’s relatively Russia-friendly orientation makes its possible entry into state government strategically sensitive. Reuters notes its opposition to aspects of German support for Ukraine and its more conciliatory position toward Moscow.

An AfD government in a German Land would not control German foreign policy.

But it would provide Moscow with something arguably more valuable:

a political demonstration that an explicitly anti-establishment, nationalist, Russia-sceptic-of-the-West party can enter Germany’s governing architecture.

That has propaganda value far beyond Saxony-Anhalt.

12. The EU should be watching—not panicking

Brussels cannot treat this as simply a German domestic issue.

Germany is the EU’s largest economy and its political centre of gravity.

A successful AfD state government could influence national politics in at least four ways:

First: it would normalise the party’s claim to governmental competence.

Second: it would increase pressure on the CDU to cooperate with it.

Third: it would strengthen anti-EU and anti-sanctions narratives.

Fourth: it would make the 2029 federal election substantially more unpredictable.

But there is an important counterargument.

If an AfD government performs poorly, the party could also be damaged by governing.

That is the great uncertainty.

Opposition parties can promise everything.

Government parties inherit:

hospitals;
schools;
police budgets;
infrastructure;
bureaucracy;
economic development;
fiscal constraints.

That is where populist movements encounter reality.

13. My central assessment: Germany has entered the normalization phase

I would distinguish three phases.

Phase I — Protest

AfD receives votes as a vehicle for anger.

Phase II — Competitive challenge

Mainstream parties begin adopting some of its themes to recover voters.

Phase III — Governing contender

The electorate starts asking not whether AfD should exist, but whether it can govern.

Saxony-Anhalt marks the beginning of Phase III.

That is why this election is much more consequential than the size of the Land would suggest.

The AfD has demonstrated that a party officially classified by the relevant state intelligence authority as extremist can become the dominant political force in a German state while participating fully in democratic elections.

The constitutional paradox is striking:

the democratic system has produced an anti-establishment party powerful enough to challenge some of the assumptions on which the postwar political system was built.

The answer cannot simply be to delegitimise its voters.

Nor can it be to accommodate its ideology wholesale.

The mainstream parties have to solve the problems that produced the vote.

14. What I would watch over the next 30–90 days

Five indicators matter far more than the rhetoric coming out of AfD headquarters.

1. CDU discipline

Do CDU deputies remain absolutely committed to the firewall?

If three break ranks, the political landscape changes overnight.

2. BSW’s actual behaviour

Not its interviews—its votes.

If BSW begins providing systematic parliamentary support, the firewall has effectively been breached even without a formal coalition.

3. Siegmund’s candidate selection

Who enters an AfD cabinet would reveal whether this is primarily a pragmatic governing project or an ideological transformation project.

4. Constitutional confrontation

Watch the courts.

Migration, education, public broadcasting and administrative appointments could quickly generate legal battles.

5. Public reaction to governing performance

This is the ultimate test.

If AfD governs incompetently, the 44% may prove to be a ceiling.

If it governs competently while implementing even a portion of its agenda, the 44% could become a floor.

That distinction is enormous.

Bottom line

I would not call this yet an AfD takeover of Saxony-Anhalt. I would call it the most serious breach of Germany’s postwar political containment system since the founding of the Federal Republic.

The AfD has won an extraordinary mandate, but it has not won the constitutional or parliamentary ability to implement everything it promises. Border control remains fundamentally a federal matter; deportations operate within federal, European and international law; and the AfD lacks the three seats required for a majority.

But those limitations should not produce complacency.

The three-seat deficit is precisely what makes this more dangerous, not less.

A party sitting at 39 seats has a much easier task than a party sitting at 20. It needs only a handful of defections, abstentions or tactical agreements to move from protest politics to executive authority.

And the deepest strategic failure belongs to the established parties: they have not yet demonstrated that the German centre can simultaneously restore economic confidence, enforce credible migration policy, preserve social cohesion and offer voters a compelling national project.

If they fail to do that, the AfD’s greatest asset will not be its ideology.

It will be the continued inadequacy of its opponents.

That is the real warning from Magdeburg.

Thomas Mann — The Coming Victory of Democracy (1938)

“Democracy is timelessly human.”

Mann’s larger argument was that democracy cannot survive merely as an institutional mechanism; it has to be renewed in people’s political and moral consciousness. He was writing while fascism was advancing across Europe, and his warning was remarkably practical: democratic societies cannot assume that their system is secure simply because elections and institutions exist.

That is perhaps the most pertinent lesson for Germany in 2026: the defence of liberal democracy cannot consist solely of a Brandmauer around the AfD. A firewall can contain a fire, but it cannot repair the conditions that allowed the fire to spread.

DE-01, Germany Agent

Three Corporate

AfD Breaks Germany’s Firewall