<p>If the final polls are accurate, Saxony-Anhalt is expected to yield significant results on Sunday. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) could secure 42% of the vote, nearly double the 22% projected for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Despite this, CDU candidate Sven Schulze may still remain as minister-president.</p>
<p>This potential outcome is permissible under Germany’s proportional representation system, which does not guarantee the largest party power without a parliamentary majority. However, the coalition needed to exclude the AfD could reveal contradictions within German politics.</p>
<p>The final ARD poll indicates the AfD at 42%, the CDU at 22%, the Left at 11%, the Social Democrats at 8%, and the Greens at 6%. AfD’s Ulrich Siegmund, 35, would still require a coalition partner, but every party likely to enter the legislature has ruled out collaboration with the AfD. The CDU, SPD, and Greens would not possess enough seats independently, leaving Schulze reliant on the Left.</p>
<p>In response to the AfD's rise, Merz has warned that an AfD victory could deter foreign investment, a concern worth considering, particularly in a state vying for factories and skilled labor. However, concerns regarding the AfD's potential actions cannot replace an analysis of why the governing parties have lost substantial support.</p>
<p>Similar discussions have emerged in the U.S. Elon Musk stated that “only the AfD can save Germany.” Vice President JD Vance met with AfD leader Alice Weidel and remarked at the Munich Security Conference that democracy should not have “firewalls.” President Donald Trump later characterized Germany’s electoral shift as a rejection of a “no common sense agenda” regarding immigration and energy, while senior officials in his administration opposed attempts to label the AfD as extremist.</p>
<p>Saxony-Anhalt will now evaluate its political dynamics against electoral mathematics. Luigi Pantisano, a national co-chairman of the Left, has indicated a willingness to support Schulze to prevent an AfD government. However, the CDU’s official stance rejects cooperation with both the AfD and the Left.</p>
<p>This situation is notable as the Left was formed through a merger involving the successor to the Socialist Unity Party, which governed communist East Germany until 1989. CDU officials are now making a careful distinction between cooperation and accepting votes on individual measures, a term broad enough to support a minority government without labeling it an alliance.</p>
<p>Voter sentiment appears to reflect understanding of this distinction. Only 32% support a CDU-led government with Left support, while 59% oppose it. When asked to choose between an AfD-led and a CDU-led government, voters were nearly split, with 42% favoring the AfD and 41% favoring the CDU.</p>
<p>No parliamentary democracy is required to grant executive office to its largest party, and 42% does not constitute a majority. The challenge arises when a cordon sanitaire becomes a substitute for persuasion, allowing parties that have lost support to maintain power without addressing why voters have turned away from them, while presenting this maneuver as a defense of those same voters.</p>
<p>The cordon sanitaire also reinforces the AfD’s argument that all established parties ultimately form a protective cartel. A conservative premier remaining in office with the support of the political heir of East Germany’s ruling communists would complicate dismissals of this claim. It would also implicate the CDU in policies that its own voters have rejected.</p>
<p>While Saxony-Anhalt is a small former East German state, the implications of the results will extend beyond its borders. If Germany’s conservatives can maintain their firewall only by relying on the far Left, the separation between political extremes and the center may be blurred, influencing governance.</p>
<p><em>René Rabeder is an Austrian journalist based in Vienna. He writes for Florida Politics, Germany’s Junge Freiheit and Statement, focusing on European politics and transatlantic affairs.</em></p>