AfD's 44% in Germany Divides Europe's Capitals
The party needs three more votes to govern, and its result is fueling debate over Germany’s Ukraine policy and the far right’s postwar limits.
- On Sunday, the Alternative for Germany won 43.9% of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt's state election, securing 39 of 83 parliamentary seats—three short of an absolute majority needed to govern.
- AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund is attempting to recruit individual legislators to break the political firewall that has prevented far-right governance in Germany since 1945, despite the party's classification as right-wing extremist.
- France's Finance Minister Roland Lescure told RTL radio the result sent a "very, very worrying signal," while Hungarian former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán congratulated the party on a "huge night for Germany and Europe."
- Chancellor Friedrich Merz told his party's executive board on Monday the defeat shook the CDU "to its very foundations," yet he refused to move "by even a millimetre" on Russia or Ukraine policy.
- With the AfD leading national polls, Germany faces elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin on September 20, pressuring the federal government as counterparts weigh whether the chancellor's successor might shift course on Ukraine.
24 Articles
24 Articles
French far right keeps guarded silence over AfD Germany triumph
More than a day after the AfD emerged as overwhelmingly the largest party in elections in Saxony-Anhalt, neither Le Pen nor the leader of her National Rally (RN) Jordan Bardella have uttered a word about the biggest breakthrough for a far-right party in Germany since World War II. Their silence matches a similar wariness from some other anti-immigration parties in Europe who fear that the AfD's positions on issues ranging from migration to histo…
AfD surge in Germany exposes deep divisions on the Italian right
A landslide win for Germany's AfD has forced Italy's right-wing leaders into the open, revealing sharply different views on Russia, Ukraine and how far the political mainstream should go in engaging with Europe's rising far right.
In the Saxony-Anhalt elections, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) won with 43.8% of the vote, doubling its vote share from 2021. While the AfD did not achieve an absolute majority, the election, which mathematically ended the current ruling bloc, reopened the debate on the "Brandmauer" policy against the far right.
In the wake of the far-right's victory in Saxony-Anhalt, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed his profound shock. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) garnered nearly 44% of the vote, while his party, the CDU, received only 17%. The AfD, now anti-immigrant and pro-Russian, was founded in 2013 amidst the debt crisis.
Read our editorial from Tuesday, September 8, 2026. The AfD's victory in the Saxony-Anhalt regional elections is a seismic event. In a country naturally marked by Nazi barbarity where a work
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