Germany’s far right AfD heads for its biggest win

BERLIN — Germany’s far right is on track to claim its biggest electoral success since World War II, with exit polls predicting it will win about 44 percent of the vote in the eastern region of Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday. The election is seen a key test of whether the Alternative for Germany (AfD) — now comfortably the most popular party in the EU’s biggest economy — is capable of governing. According to an exit poll by the broadcaster ARD, the AfD was on course to secure first place, with 44.5 percent of the vote. A similar poll on ZDF put the party’s support at 44 percent. The same polls put the Christian Democratic Union party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz in second place, on 18.5 percent. The success of the anti-immigrant AfD in this small state of just 2.1 million inhabitants is a huge blow to his conservatives, and has even sparked speculation about a potential Kanzlertausch, or chancellor swap. The big question on Sunday night is whether the AfD’s lead will ultimately be large enough for it to govern, or whether other parties will be able to form a coalition against it. The AfD’s national co-leader Alice Weidel immediately hailed a “historic result” and said the party had “a very clear mandate for governing.” But the election night arithmetic is still uncertain. If the final results are in line with the exit polls, the AfD would not be able to rule alone. Much attention will therefore fall on the populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance party (BSW), which appears close to the 5 percent threshold of qualifying for Saxony-Anhalt’s regional parliament. The BSW has said it would be willing to cooperate with the AfD, and could secure the election for the far right. Weidel said her party “always has an outstretched hand” for coalition partners. Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, was wary on the question of whether he would be able to become prime minster of the region. “We can’t answer that question right now at 6 p.m. But we’ve achieved exactly what we set out to do. We’ve made history in this country,” he told ARD. He argued the result was a direct signal to Merz. “Of course, it’s also a message directed at Berlin. We’re well aware that he’s a very effective campaigner. For us, Friedrich Merz was the face of this campaign. Each day of having this man in the chancellery is one too many. That’s how people in Saxony-Anhalt see it, too.” The result looks set to be a bruising blow for the CDU that has governed the region over the past 24 years. CDU General Secretary Franziska Hoppermann called it a”very difficult result” and an “overall defeat” for the Christian Democrats. Sven Schulze, the current prime minister of Saxony-Anhalt, also conceded the severity of the defeat, particularly since turnout appeared to be very high. “The winner of the election, the AfD, is now the strongest force in the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt, and we in the CDU will have to deal with this result,” he said. The fact that four in 10 voters in Saxony-Anhalt supported the AfD despite its state branch being designated a right-wing extremist organization by the state’s intelligence agency and reports that members of lead candidate Siegmund’s inner circle were part of an organization modeled on the Hitler Youth, speaks to widespread public distrust in mainstream parties, the media, and institutions in eastern Germany — a region that was under communist control during the Cold War. Polls show that the AfD is also leading in the eastern state of Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, where voters go to the ballot on Sept. 20. In Berlin, a traditionally left-wing capital where voters will go to the polls that same day, the AfD is also performing particularly strongly, polling at around 18 percent. The Saxony-Anhalt result also surpasses the AfD’s previous biggest breakthrough in th