What stopped the AfD in Thuringia
Preliminary results from Sunday put the AfD first in Saxony-Anhalt with 43.8 per cent, and gave it 39 seats in the 83-seat state parliament, three below the 42 needed for an outright majority. The CDU took 17.2 per cent. The party also won the 2024 state election in neighbouring Thuringia but failed to secure enough seats to win power.[1]
What separates the two results is where the seats fell. The gap that did not close in Thuringia is down to three seats in Saxony-Anhalt, which is why the fact that no far-right party has controlled a German state since World War Two looks like a product of seat distribution and of other parties refusing to co-operate as much as of voter preference. Another explanation fits the same data: national migration and economic politics may have shifted between the two elections and produced the difference.[1]
Where an unwritten rule is tested
Beatrix von Storch, the AfD's deputy parliamentary leader, called on the parties that refuse to work with it to enter talks and said you cannot claim not to accept the vote of the people. Ulrich Siegmund, the party's leader in Saxony-Anhalt, said on Monday that it had a clear mandate to govern and that discussions could take days or weeks. Every party apart from the BSW refuses to co-operate with the AfD, and von Storch said the party was talking to individuals within the CDU group. One option under discussion is a minority government resting on tacit support from the BSW, which is set to win five seats.[1]
Governing at state level would mean powers over policing and local education, so the bargaining in Saxony-Anhalt goes beyond a symbolic threshold. Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he found the result seismic and that a return to business as usual is not possible. What settles the rest is whether any parliamentary group other than the BSW, or individual members, sit down in formal talks with the AfD: if such participation is announced, the unwritten refusal to co-operate will have given way to seat arithmetic.[1]