AfD Victory in Saxony-Anhalt Deepens Germany’s Eastern Economic Divide

The election in Saxony-Anhalt has delivered a decisive first-place finish for Alternative for Germany, but not a clear route to stable government. In the eastern German state’s Landtag election held on September 6, preliminary official results published after ballots were counted across all polling stations showed the far-right AfD winning 43.8 percent of the vote. The result gives the party 39 of the 83 seats in the state parliament and places its 35-year-old lead candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, at the center of coalition talks that could test Germany’s postwar political conventions.

The scale of the result is economically and politically significant. Saxony-Anhalt is not merely another regional contest; it is a state where questions of industrial policy, energy costs, demographic pressure and eastern Germany’s long-running convergence challenge remain acute. A party that has campaigned on a sharp change of course now holds the largest bloc in the legislature, while the former governing parties have been badly weakened.

The Christian Democratic Union, whose member Sven Schulze is the incumbent state premier, won 17.2 percent, almost half its level at the previous election. The Social Democratic Party took 9.3 percent, the Greens 8.9 percent, and The Left 8.6 percent. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, known as BSW in German and SSV in the source text, entered the Landtag with 5.3 percent. The Free Democratic Party and other parties failed to cross the five percent threshold. Turnout was 77.8 percent.

Under the seat distribution, AfD will hold 39 mandates, the CDU 15, The Left, the Greens and the SPD eight each, and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance five. That arithmetic gives AfD a commanding position but not an outright majority. It also leaves the new parliament fragmented between parties that, with one important exception, have said they do not intend to govern with AfD.

A Collapse of the Old Regional Balance

The depth of the CDU’s defeat was visible not only in the statewide vote but also in the constituency map. Sven Schulze, 47, lost in his own electoral district in Magdeburg, receiving 31.7 percent against 35.2 percent for AfD candidate Christian Mertens. Schulze became state premier in early 2025 after previously serving as economy minister and as a member of the European Parliament.

CDU candidates failed to win a single direct mandate. They lost in all 41 constituencies. AfD candidates won 38 of them, including Siegmund in Genthin. Only in the larger cities of Magdeburg and Halle did AfD fall short of a convincing sweep. The contrast with the 2021 state election is stark: then, the CDU won direct mandates in 40 of 41 constituencies, while AfD won one.

For an economics-focused readership, that reversal matters because regional power in Germany often shapes the practical administration of investment, education, infrastructure, planning and energy transition policy. A shift of this magnitude can change expectations among businesses, municipal authorities and investors, even before a government is formed. The uncertainty now is not simply ideological; it is institutional.

Energy, Russia and the Search for a Majority

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance may become the pivotal force. Its lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, Thomas Schulze, said after the election that he was open to talks with AfD. He told dpa that the party had said it would negotiate with all parties and that this included AfD. He also said the alliance was not interested in the so-called firewall against the far right.

“We stated that we would hold talks with all parties. That includes AfD,” Thomas Schulze said, according to dpa.

Asked about common ground between the two parties, Schulze pointed first to Russia policy, saying there were points of contact on opposition to sanctions that he said were “literally destroying our economy.” Both parties also advocate what they describe as affordable energy, including the resumption of oil and gas supplies from Russia.

That position speaks directly to one of eastern Germany’s central economic fault lines. The region’s industrial competitiveness has been pressured by high energy costs, while political debate over sanctions and Russian supplies remains tied to questions of household purchasing power, manufacturing costs and the legacy of economic integration patterns before and after reunification. The election result suggests that energy affordability, once framed largely as a technocratic issue, has become a decisive political mobilizer.

Yet a coalition between AfD and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance would not be straightforward. Dpa noted that several AfD initiatives are incompatible with the alliance’s positions. Thomas Schulze said AfD’s education policy was entirely unsuitable for his party and that the two sides were “very, very far apart” on that issue. He also said his party had a much more socially oriented economic stance. The alliance has proposed a nonpartisan state premier who would govern with changing majorities involving AfD.

Siegmund has rejected that idea. According to Reuters, the AfD winner in Saxony-Anhalt said the party would not abandon its “values” and goals for political games. He ruled out coalitions requiring major compromises, saying voters should finally receive after elections what they had voted for. He said cooperation would be possible only with those who supported AfD’s demand for a clear change of political course in the state, whether through a parliamentary group or individual lawmakers.

AfD chairman Tino Chrupalla has already said Siegmund will put himself forward for the premiership. Speaking on ARD, Chrupalla said AfD was ready to compromise in talks with other parties, including on migration and economic policy, provided they accepted a change of course.

The Minority-Government Option

The outgoing coalition of the CDU, SPD and FDP suffered a crushing defeat. With the FDP out of parliament, the old governing formula has disappeared. According to statements cited in the source, no party entering the new Landtag apart from the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance intends to join a coalition with AfD.

That leaves a narrow and politically fragile alternative. A minority government made up of the CDU, SPD and Greens would have 31 seats. With full support from The Left, it could command 40 seats, just ahead of AfD’s 39. In such a configuration, the five deputies from the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance could become decisive.

But Sven Schulze repeatedly said before the election that he did not want to depend on either the right or the left. Inside the CDU, there is also resistance to any cooperation with The Left. If Schulze were nominated again for state premier, dissenters could emerge within his own ranks. CDU state parliament member Eva Feußner has already warned Stern that if cooperation with the left were attempted, entire local party branches would unanimously leave the party.

The result therefore points beyond a regional protest vote. It exposes a structural problem in Germany’s party system: the economic grievances of the east are being translated into parliamentary arithmetic that the established parties are struggling to manage. Saxony-Anhalt now faces a government-formation process in which every viable option carries political cost, and every delay risks reinforcing the very anti-establishment momentum that produced the result.