Election posters for Ulrich Siegmund, the top candidate for the Afd in the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, are seen fixed on a fence in Osterwieck, Germany. (AFP Photo)
Germany faces a landmark regional election on Sept. 6 in the ex-communist east where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is expected to win and has its sights on heading its first state government.
While it is far from assured that the AfD will win enough votes to rule the state alone, topping the polls in Saxony-Anhalt state would heap pressure on Chancellor Friedrich Merz and spell another boost for the anti-immigration party.
For months the AfD has polled at 40 percent or higher in the state, led by its top candidate Ulrich Siegmund, a telegenic 35-year-old who is feted like a rock star at campaign events and by his legions of TikTok followers.
His campaign promises include an immediate “remigration and deportation” offensive targeting irregular migrants, a ban on LGBT pride rainbow flags at public schools, and an end to new wind farms.
The Moscow-friendly party has also tapped into a sense of nostalgia for the bygone days of communist East Germany and resentment about an enduring wealth gap with the west decades after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.
Siegmund has vowed to “make history” on Sept. 6 and lead a political revolution from the small state of 2.1 million people that he hopes will propel his anti-establishment party to national victory in 2029.
The incumbent state premier, 47-year-old Sven Schulze of Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party who leads a multi-party coalition, has put up large billboards beside highways that warn voters that the “far right leads into the ditch”.
While many AfD voters pine for dramatic change, the scenario of an AfD victory scares much of Germany, a country long at pains to atone for its dark history of World War II and the Holocaust.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency BfV categorizes the AfD’s state branch as a “right-wing extremist” organization.
In its latest report, the BfV documents that many AfD politicians in Saxony-Anhalt “employ language that demonizes migrants” and routinely brand Muslim refugees as criminals, a collective disparagement that violates “the principle of human dignity.”
All other major parties have so far maintained a “firewall” of non-cooperation with the AfD, although the tiny BSW party, which is economically on the left but veers right on immigration, has now signaled it may support the AfD forming a government.
Merz has vowed to halt the decade-long rise of the AfD by rebooting the stagnant economy and restricting irregular immigration, but so far without success as the former fringe party keeps coming first in nationwide polls.
“If the AfD wins the Saxony-Anhalt election, it would represent a personal defeat for Friedrich Merz,” said Oliver Lembcke of Ruhr University in Bochum.
“He had aimed to cut the AfD’s vote share in half. Instead, the AfD has overtaken the CDU as the strongest party, even at the federal level. He bears personal responsibility for this outcome.”
