Alternative for Germany (AfD) party members and candidates hold a celebration at party headquarters following the announcement of the exit polls during the Saxony-Anhalt regional elections, Sunday, September 6, 2026, in Magdeburg, Germany. Amid growing public dissatisfaction with the government, the far-right party Alternative for Germany won a decisive victory in the Saxony-Anhalt state election.
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The far-right’s landslide victory in elections over the weekend in the small but important state of Saxony-Anhalt sent shockwaves across Europe and increased pressure on Germany’s federal government.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) won the highest percentage of votes with 43.8%, far ahead of the 17.2% of the incumbent Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU), which also leads Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s National Coalition. Initial results showed the AfD won 39 of 83 seats in parliament, three seats short of an outright majority, and it is unclear whether it will be able to form a new state government.
A so-called “firewall” means that Germany’s other political parties agree not to cooperate with the far-right in ways that give it political power. However, according to Reuters, AfD candidate Ulrich Siegmund said on Monday that his party would consult with “individual parliamentary groups or individual MPs” to see whether they would support the AfD in running the government.
Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at consulting firm Eurasia Group, said on Monday that the “extraordinary” result could be “the most significant result in Germany’s state elections since the war.”
The AfD has grown in popularity in recent years, particularly in eastern Germany, and the results raise the possibility that a hard-right party will come to power in a German state for the first time since the Nazi era.
At the state level, the party has promised tough anti-refugee and anti-immigrant policies, such as accelerating deportations and separating refugee children into separate classrooms, while encouraging small businesses to use AI instead of immigrant workers and giving families financial incentives to have more children.
In his memo, Rahman said voters “looking for a truly radical shift” voted for the AfD, while liberal and left-leaning voters turned to the Greens and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), squeezing the CDU from both sides. If this trend continues, he added, upcoming elections in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and Berlin could turn into “a national crisis with regional earthquakes.”
People are ‘outraged’ over the current state of the German economy
Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg, said in a note on Monday that Saxony-Anhalt, a traditional stronghold for Germany’s chemical and car supplies, has “suffered disproportionately” from the collapse of East German industry after unification and the recent rise in energy prices.
This result will also deal a blow to the Merz federal government, which opinion polls show is deeply unpopular.
Former CDU Economy and Energy Minister Peter Altmaier told CNBC on Monday that questions about the future of Germany’s industry, innovation and welfare were key themes in the election campaign.
Although it was a state election, dissatisfaction with the national answers to these questions led to the outcome, Altmaier said.
Five years of economic stagnation and lack of job creation have left Germany “furious” and looking to challenge parties on both the left and the right, Altmaier continued, while many traditional jobs have been lost.
“We were expecting the worst, but this result last night was kind of a disaster, and of course it will have an impact on the national political debate and future elections in other states,” Altmaier said.
“Saxony-Anhalt is of course one of the smallest states and Germany’s democracy is strong and resilient. But this is unprecedented and will be a concern not only for us but also for our European neighbors.”
On Monday, ministers from both Poland and France, who also face the prospect of far-right electoral gains, said they were concerned about the outcome in Germany, local media reported.
Berenberg’s Holger Schmieding said it was highly unlikely that the Saxony-Anhalt state election alone would reveal details about Germany’s plans to increase defense and infrastructure spending, or most of the unpopular cuts and pro-growth reforms expected to be passed this fall.
These include savings for the pension system, tax and health care reforms, measures to cut bureaucracy, and increases in defense and infrastructure spending.
“Avoiding the alternative, namely reforms to strengthen Germany’s growth potential, is likely to further worsen the coalition’s prospects in the long term,” he said.
Schmieding also said it appeared “likely” that Mertz and his coalition would “keep fighting” until the end of his term in Congress in early 2029.
But Schmieding added that this was largely due to the lack of alternatives, and the result would still be a “huge blow” for the chancellor and increase the risk of the government collapsing.
