Germany’s Far-Right AfD Poised for Landslide Win, Exit Polls

Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany’s hard-right Alternative for Germany party, declared that the AfD had been handed a clear mandate to govern after Sunday’s exit polls pointed to a landmark regional election triumph.

The anti-immigration party, which has also been noted for its Russia-friendly stance, was projected to secure at least 44 percent of the vote in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, according to exit polling from two public broadcasters.

That result would put the AfD well ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s centre-right CDU, which was polling at 18.5 percent.

Public broadcasters ARD and ZDF cautioned, however, that it remained unclear whether the hard-right party had won enough support for an outright majority — a result that would allow it to lead a German state government on its own for the first time.

“We have made history today,” said Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s 35-year-old lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, as he celebrated the projected result.

Weidel said the AfD would talk to all parties. The AfD has until now faced a policy of so-called Brandmauer – which translates as ‘firewall’ – meaning other mainstream German parties have refused to cooperate with or go into coalition with them.  

Recently dubbed ‘Germany’s most dangerous man’ by a news magazine, the hard-Right leader mocked the publication by handing out signed copies to his fans.

In recent months, Siegmund has been mobbed by adoring supporters at ‘family picnics’ and campaign events across the small state.

But his vow to deport irregular migrants ‘from minute one’ has terrified many foreign-born residents.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency considers the AfD chapter he represents as ‘Right-wing extremist’ with links to ethno-nationalist groups and think-tanks.

Siegmund was present at a 2023 secret meeting near Berlin where extreme Right-wing activists discussed a radical ‘remigration’ plan to expel millions of people with a migration background.

At the time, the revelation cost Siegmund a committee chairmanship in the state parliament – but he has since dismissed the meeting as a ‘Kaffee Klatsch’ or casual social gathering.

‘It was the others who erected the firewalls,’ he told Bild daily. ‘If no one wants to work with us, then we’ll just have to do it alone.’ 

German voters headed to the polls today for a crucial regional election with voting booths closing at 6pm local time (4pm GMT). 

The small state of Saxony-Anhalt was ruled by the centre-Right CDU of Chancellor Friedrich Merz in coalition with two smaller parties, run by state premier Sven Schulze, but the multi-party coalition appears to have failed to cling to power.

AfD’s win will shake Germany, a country that has long been at pains to atone for its dark history in World War II and the Holocaust and which has so far kept extremist parties in check.

A strong AfD win in Saxony-Anhalt will also heap pressure on Merz, who has vowed to reboot a stagnant economy and restrict irregular immigration, but has seen his party beaten by the AfD in national surveys too.

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‘If the AfD wins in Saxony-Anhalt, Merz’s critics will become even more vocal, and calls for better leadership will become impossible to ignore,’ said political scientist Wolfgang Schroeder of Kassel University.

However, Schroeder also said he does not expect Merz to be ousted, given the current absence of a strong rival candidate: ‘As far as I can see, there is no alternative chancellor.’

Siegmund had vowed to topple a ‘domino’ on Sunday and lead a political revolution from the small state of 2.1 million people that propels the anti-establishment party to national victory in 2029.

The AfD’s key campaign promises include a ‘remigration and deportation offensive’, a ban on LGBTQ pride rainbow flags at public schools, and an end to new wind farms.

The party has also tapped into a sense of nostalgia for communist East Germany and lingering resentment about an enduring wealth gap with the West decades after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.

The prospect of an AfD state government – while eagerly awaited by many voters – has sparked alarm among mainstream parties and minority groups.

Thousands of the AfD’s opponents joined a ‘festival of democracy’ rally in Magdeburg on the eve of the vote.

The German Economic Institute warned the AfD’s immigration policy would be ‘ruinous’ for the state, whose population is already ageing, shrinking and highly reliant on foreign-born workers.

Others have voiced fears an AfD-run state security apparatus could leak sensitive information to Russia.

The Kremlin ‘makes no secret of the fact that the AfD is the most important instrument for destabilising Germany for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,’ Thuringia state interior minister Georg Maier told the Handelsblatt daily.

The latest poll, released Thursday by public broadcaster ZDF, gave the AfD a commanding lead of 41 percent.

The CDU got 23 percent, the centre-left SPD 8.5 percent and the Greens six percent, while two smaller parties failed to cross the five-percent hurdle to reenter parliament.

A similar result may allow a scenario where the CDU and others form a minority government with ad hoc support from the hard-Left Die Linke party, which polled at 11.5 percent.

In the final stretch of campaigning, a social media video stoked fears about mail vote fraud, with claims of manipulation at an elderly care home that were denied by state authorities.

Germany’s parliamentary speaker Julia Kloeckner dismissed AfD speculation of voter manipulation, speaking to news weekly Der Spiegel.

‘Questioning elections without concrete evidence appears to have one goal,’ she said, ‘to sow distrust in our rules and to accept the results only if the outcome suits’.