On Sunday, Germany’s AfD party achieved a major breakthrough. In the small state of Saxony-Anhalt, preliminary results show the AfD has received 43.8% of the vote share, just shy of the 50% needed to form an absolute majority. Words such as “landslide” and “political earthquake” are being used to describe the party’s performance, and this is no exaggeration. These results could usher in the first hard-Right government anywhere in Germany since the Second World War.

There are still plenty of uncertainties. As it stands, the AfD has narrowly missed the opportunity to govern alone by just three seats. Traditionally, this would have meant that the “firewall” — the other parties’ long-standing agreement not to work with the AfD — had been effective and sent the party back into opposition despite its first-place finish. This happened in the neighbouring state of Thuringia in similar elections in 2024. But this time the parliamentary arithmetic has changed drastically.

In this context, one factor that’s still up in the air is what happens to the smaller parties. In Germany, a party must achieve 5% of the vote share to enter parliament. The BSW, a relatively new anti-establishment party that combines social conservatism with Left-wing economic ideas and a strong pro-Russian stance, has just about hit that mark, winning 5.3% of the vote.

The BSW could be key because it has already indicated that it will not support any of the mainstream parties and could abstain from voting for a new state government altogether. With these votes out of the picture, an AfD governor of Saxony-Anhalt could be elected even without an absolute majority. However, BSW leaders have also said they’d be open to tolerating an AfD minority government, voting with the Right-wing party on certain issues.

There is also a big question mark around what the conservatives from the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) may do. The party came in second with just 17.2%, despite having led governments in Saxony-Anhalt continuously for the last 24 years. Their visibly dejected lead candidate and incumbent state governor, Sven Schulze, said that “this is democracy”, pointing to the record turnout of nearly 80% and indicating that the wishes of the electorate should be taken into account.

Some of Schulze’s fellow conservatives might take this to mean they can look for ways to work with the AfD, which overlaps with their party on parts of migration and economic policy. Some may vote with the AfD or even defect to the party outright — rumours to that effect have been swirling for weeks. As it stands, fewer than five deputies from any other party would need to prop up the AfD to allow it to govern: the margins are extremely fine.

The Saxony-Anhalt election may only affect one of Germany’s 16 states, but it signifies that the AfD has become a major political player, one which is impossible to ignore or exclude from government. Now, a total of five political parties would have to form a coalition against the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt to find a majority without it. Such a coalition would span almost the entire political spectrum from centre-right to far-Left. This would likely not satisfy any of their voters or bring about the change so many crave.

While much is still up in the air, what’s already clear is that Germany’s “firewall” against the AfD has seen a serious breach. Whatever else may happen, at almost 44% of the vote, the AfD can no longer be treated as a fringe party to be excluded from power at will. Discourse in Germany is likely to adapt accordingly as the reality of what happened yesterday settles in. The country’s political landscape has shifted dramatically, and there is no going back.

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Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian and writer. Her latest book Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe will be released in May 2026.

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