Far-right Alternative for Germany party wins big in regional election but falls short of majority

MAGDEBURG, Germany — The far-right Alternative for Germany party surged to a resounding victory in a regional election Sunday, but fell a little short of winning a majority in its quest to form the country’s first far-right state government since World War II.

The party of Germany’s unpopular leader, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, slumped to a disastrous result in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. The anti-migration and Russia-friendly Alternative for Germany’s candidate for governor said that “we have written history” and the party had a clear mandate to govern.

Ulrich Siegmund told ARD public broadcaster that “things cannot carry on like this” and that it was “also a signal toward Berlin.” Of Germany’s leader, the 35-year-old candidate added: “A very good campaigner for us in this election campaign was Friedrich Merz. Every day this man is in the chancellery is one too many.”

Alternative for Germany, or AfD, went into the vote seeking an absolute majority in the state legislature to govern alone and overcome the so-called firewall of mainstream parties’ refusal to work with AfD.

Final results showed AfD falling three seats short, with 39 lawmakers in an 83-member parliament. Siegmund said it wouldn’t engage in “games” such as a minority government. But it wasn’t evident how its divided opponents could assemble any stable government without it.

A first state government would be the biggest prize in the party’s 13-year history, at a time of widespread discontent with an unpopular national government that has yet to persuade voters it can get the country’s sluggish economy moving.

Whether or not AfD can form a government, the projected result is a blow to Merz, whose center-right party has led Saxony-Anhalt for 24 years.

Unlike other countries in Europe, modern Germany hasn’t yet had a far-right or right-wing populist party leading a national, state or major-city government.

AfD is the biggest opposition party in Germany’s national parliament and is strongest in the formerly communist and less prosperous east, where Saxony-Anhalt is located.

Its regional branch in Saxony-Anhalt is one of several classified as a proven right-wing extremist group by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, which points to members’ denigration of migrants from Muslim countries, among other things.

The party talks of “remigration,” a politically charged term for the deportation of immigrants. Its leader in a neighboring state appealed two convictions for knowingly using a Nazi slogan.

AfD rejects accusations of extremism, which it calls politically motivated.

Big decline for Merz’s party

AfD won 43.8% of the vote, more than double its showing five years ago in the region of 2.1 million people west of Berlin.

That was far ahead of Merz’s Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, which polled 17.2% — losing about half its support — and won 15 seats. The center-left Social Democrats received 9.3%, the Greens 8.9% and the Left Party 8.6%, winning eight seats apiece.

The BSW party, which has said it wouldn’t elect either Siegmund or incumbent Sven Schulze as governor but criticizes the firewall against AfD, took 5.3% and five seats.

Turnout was very high at 77.8%. AfD appeared to have won over many people who didn’t vote five years ago.

AfD’s national co-leader, Alice Weidel, described the projected result as “sensational.” She said the party’s “hand is outstretched to all who want to make Saxony-Anhalt better and move Germany forward.” It may hope to attract defectors from other parties.

Schulze congratulated AfD on becoming the state’s strongest political force and said that “we as the CDU will also have to deal with this result,” without specifying how.

Franziska Hoppermann, the national general secretary of the CDU, said that it was “a very difficult result for us.” She and others rejected the idea of backing off their refusal to deal with AfD.

“AfD is a right-wing extremist party. It wants to leave the euro; that would be economic downfall. ... It works closely together with Russia; it wants a completely different social model,” she said. “We will not work with them.”

Once previously AfD won a state election but didn’t end up governing. That was two years ago in neighboring Thuringia, where a CDU governor took power with a minority government, but AfD was far short of a majority there.

Any attempt by Schulze to put together an alliance against AfD would be delicate because it would require at least some tacit support from the Left Party, a hard-left party with which the CDU has refused to form coalitions.

Germany’s states have extensive powers

Germany’s 16 states have extensive powers, for example in overseeing security matters and running the education system.

AfD leaders during the campaign adopted President Trump’s strategy for sowing doubt about the integrity of mail voting by advancing unproven claims. And though they avoid mentioning him by name — given Trump’s deep unpopularity in Germany, even on the right — they share many of his policy positions.

Siegmund has listed among his top priorities “the deportation of people who are illegal, a deportation offensive and above all dropping the incentives for why people come here and exploit our social system.” He wants to initiate a long process to withdraw Saxony-Anhalt from the regional public broadcaster, citing concerns about “disinformation.”

AfD in Saxony-Anhalt wants to allow homeschooling, which so far isn’t permitted in Germany. It pledges to ban schools from officially raising the rainbow flag and ensure they fly the national flag. It opposes taxpayers’ money being “given away” to Ukraine and says it would push to lift sanctions against Russia, but that isn’t a matter state governments can decide.

The 16 state governments also sit in Germany’s upper house of parliament, which has to approve some government legislation. The influence there of Saxony-Anhalt, one of the smaller states in a nation of 83.5 million people, is limited — it controls four of the 69 votes.

Moulson and Sopke write for the Associated Press. Moulson reported from Berlin.