Saxony-Anhalt’s incumbent premier Sven Schulze, from the CDU, struck a more sober note on Sunday night. “Some say this is a dark day for Saxony-Anhalt. I say: That’s democracy,” he told ARD. “The people went to the polls today.”
The rout piles pressure on Merz, who once vowed to cut the AfD in half but has been chancellor while the far-right party has boomed in the polls.
Social Democratic Party co-leader Lars Klingbeil called the vote a “signal to Berlin” and said the result should prompt the federal government to reflect on its policies. Co-leader Bärbel Bas said the result was “frightening many people,” while Green co-chair Felix Banaszak described the AfD surge as “dramatic.”
The Left’s Heidi Reichinnek branded the result “catastrophic,” blaming federal government policies for creating fertile ground for the far right. But the CDU’s refusal to cooperate with The Left makes constructing an anti-AfD majority harder.
Left-populist BSW founder Sahra Wagenknecht declared the “firewall policy” a failure in a post on X, warning another coalition built purely to exclude the AfD would be an “affront” to voters.
The AfD, meanwhile, claimed a mandate to govern. Co-leader Alice Weidel hailed a “historic result,” while fellow co-leader Tino Chrupalla declared: “Ulrich Siegmund will be our new minister-president,” referring to the party’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt.