Saxony-Anhalt: 43.8 percent AfD is not an industrial accident, it is the result of two decades of abandonment

On September 7th, the AfD won 43.8 percent of the second votes in Saxony-Anhalt - 576,037 voters, 39 seats, more than any other party in the state's history since 1990. In rural areas the proportion was 50.4 percent, for men it was 50 percent, and in the age group 35 to 59 it was even 52 percent. The CDU fell to 17.2 percent, its worst result ever. It is the first case since 1945 that a party classified as right-wing extremist by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution becomes the strongest force in a German federal state and thus has a real prospect of becoming prime minister.

Anyone who describes this as a sudden change in mood is ignoring the curve. In 2016, the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt was 24.3 percent, in 2021 it was 20.8 - a result that was already considered an alarm signal at the time and yet had no consequences. Five years and a doubling later, the regional association is exactly the party that was warned about in 2016, only with twice as many seats and without anything fundamental having changed in the political reaction: firewall rhetoric in Berlin, austerity policies in the country, no investment in the area where the party has built its base.

Robert Fietzke from the socio-cultural youth center Zora in Halberstadt describes what these numbers mean on site, not abstractly, but concretely: threats to set the center on fire, right-wing graffiti, neo-Nazis with batons before an election rally with Luisa Neubauer. This is not a side note on the election results, this is the blueprint for how AfD success will be spelled out on the streets - by intimidating youth centers, NGOs and everyone who is migrant, queer or simply uncomfortable, long before any government has been formed.

At the same time, election night itself shows that the resistance exists and is organized. Up to 20,000 people at the democracy festival on Magdeburg Cathedral Square, around 2,000 at the autonomous “Antifa remain” demo in Halle. The difference between the two rallies is politically revealing: the civil alliance “Saxony-Anhalt cosmopolitan” is mobilizing broadly but appealingly; The autonomous scene is organized for an emergency, with the knowledge that after a possible AfD participation in the government, it could be the first in the crosshairs of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the police, who would then no longer be neutral, but would be instrumentalized for party politics.

What matters is not the next rally, but what happens between the election dates. Fietzke's point hits the core: 59 percent of workers and 65 percent of those who rate their financial situation as poor voted for the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt. A party that makes migrants scapegoats wins strongest where the federal government has been making cuts instead of investing for years. Anti-fascist solidarity work – advice centers, open spaces, alliances like the “Saxony-Anhalt cosmopolitan” which has 300 organizations – is necessary, but it does not replace politics that deprives social insecurity of its nourishment. Without one, the other remains symptom control, important as it is in individual cases if a youth center is to burn.

Sources

Tagesschau: All results of the 2026 state elections in Saxony-Anhalt
Deutschlandfunk: Saxony-Anhalt state election – AfD wins with 43.8%
Frankfurter Rundschau: “We are at the beginning of a new wave of violence”
taz: Saxony-Anhalt – thousands on the streets before the election