Germany's Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won 43.8% of the vote in Sunday's election in Saxony-Anhalt, more than double its showing five years ago, according to the reported results. Chancellor Friedrich Merz's party lost about half its support.
The result is the biggest test yet for Germany's long-standing 'firewall' against cooperation with AfD, a party that the country's domestic intelligence agency classifies as an extremist group in some regions, including Saxony-Anhalt. Mainstream parties have said they would not work with AfD, and Merz has strictly rejected any kind of cooperation in the past.
AfD candidate Ulrich Siegmund aims to become the first far-right head of a state government. He has said he will reach out to other parties and individual lawmakers to assemble a governing majority. He has rejected an AfD minority government, but the party could possibly govern with the hard-left BSW party, which received 5.3% of the vote.
On Monday, BSW's lead candidate, Thomas Schulze, expressed willingness to help an AfD governor take office in the state parliament. That raises the possibility of a governing majority built on a shared Russia-friendly course and opposition to immigration, even though the two parties do not agree on some other subjects.
The numbers leave Germany's establishment with a hard choice. Excluding AfD would require every other elected party to work together: CDU, Social Democrats, the Greens, the Left Party, and BSW. That would be a five-party coalition, described as extremely unusual, very complicated, and prone to instability.
Another path would be defections. Newly elected lawmakers from other parties could switch sides, and AfD would only need three people to get a majority to govern.
Political analyst Volker Resing said AfD may be able to overcome the firewall after its strong showing in Saxony-Anhalt, with BSW potentially serving as the kingmaker. He said, 'This tiny party could now play a decisive role in determining the future of Saxony-Anhalt.'
Resing also said it is still unclear whether the parties will join forces based on their common view toward Russia to overcome the firewall and succeed in forming Germany's first far-right state government since the end of the Nazi era.
For Germany, this is more than a regional political shift. A firewall only works when voters accept the parties that built it. When the vote moves hard enough, the administrative state and its political gatekeepers can find themselves bargaining with the very force they tried to exclude. Capital rewards clear rules, but politics now looks a lot less certain.
The market has already voted in a different way, one that rewards clarity over permanent coalition games. If Germany's mainstream parties cannot translate voter demand into a stable government, investors will read the result as another warning that sovereignty without political order quickly turns into leverage for the most disciplined bloc.
