The far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) won the Sunday elections in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, obtaining 43.8% of the votes, a record result that left it just three seats short of an absolute majority in the regional parliament. Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD's candidate for prime minister, said at the election party that the night was "historic" and that the party has a mandate to govern, promising to extend a hand to anyone willing to solve the country's problems.
The AfD's co-leader, Tino Chrupalla, guaranteed that the party will "assume the responsibility of governing in Saxony-Anhalt and also at the federal level," at the latest after the 2029 general elections. The far-right formation currently ranks first in national polls, having become the second force at the national level in the 2025 federal elections.
The candidate of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Prime Minister Sven Schulze, expressed disappointment with the party's result, which obtained only 17.2%, half of the votes from 2021, acknowledging the "hard blow." The leader of the CDU parliamentary group in the federal parliament, Thorsten Frei, considered the AfD's victory as "a turning point for the country," underlining that never before had a party classified as a confirmed "right-wing extremist" by the Regional Office for the Protection of the Constitution obtained a majority.
The parties that achieved representation in the regional parliament were the SPD (9.3%), the Greens (8.9%), "The Left" (8.6%), and the left-wing alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), with 5.3%. The CDU reiterated that it is not possible to hold talks with the AfD due to the party's "serious antisemitism problem," while the BSW, which does not support the firewall, has become a potential decisive force in the regional parliament.
