The far-right party is polling at about 42% ahead of the state election, while a national survey shows widespread fear of an AfD-led government.
Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland is approaching a historic result in Saxony-Anhalt, according to polling reported by Adevărul, with support of about 42% ahead of the 6 September election. That puts the party roughly 20 percentage points ahead of the CDU and raises the prospect that a regional breakthrough could intensify the country’s wider political crisis.
The strength of the AfD comes as a survey by the INSA polling agency for Bild found that 47% of Germans believe a government led by the party would harm the country’s interests. A further 22% said they would be prepared to leave Germany if an AfD representative became federal chancellor.
A regional vote with national consequences
The figures point to more than an electoral contest in one eastern German state. They show a sharp division between the AfD’s expanding support and the anxiety it provokes among a substantial part of the population. The prospect of people considering emigration if the party reached the chancellery underlines the scale of distrust towards the German far right and the depth of social polarisation.
An AfD success in Saxony-Anhalt could therefore affect political calculations well beyond the state. Further elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin would provide additional tests of whether the party’s momentum was confined to one contest or reflected a broader shift in German politics. A strong result would also increase pressure on established parties as they attempted to respond to the AfD without allowing its agenda to define the political centre.
The immediate consequence would be a further weakening of confidence in democratic institutions. If almost half of the public sees a possible AfD-led federal government as damaging, while more than one in five says they might leave the country, electoral gains are likely to deepen—not resolve—the struggle over Germany’s political direction.
Migration policy at the centre of the dispute
Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD leader in Saxony-Anhalt, has called for Ukrainian refugees to be treated as illegal migrants. He has also advocated scrapping sanctions against Russia, restoring the teaching of Russian and restarting exchanges with Russia.
Those positions place migration and Germany’s relationship with Moscow at the heart of the concerns surrounding an AfD advance. The party’s stated approach to migration includes tighter controls and the prospect of mass deportations, while its proposed pressure on public-service media raises separate concerns about the independence of institutions that help sustain democratic accountability.
Such measures would carry consequences beyond the treatment of migrants. Mass deportations and a worsening climate for foreign residents could intensify Germany’s shortage of workers by encouraging qualified employees to leave or discouraging others from settling in the country. The same pressures could weaken Germany’s appeal to investors, adding an economic dimension to the political risks identified in the debate over the AfD.
A potential rupture in foreign policy
An AfD-led government would also risk an abrupt change in Germany’s external policy. Repealing trade sanctions against Russia and normalising relations with the Kremlin, while Russia’s aggression against Ukraine continues, would put Berlin at odds with the consolidated position of the EU and with its Nato partners.
That would turn a domestic electoral breakthrough into a wider strategic problem. Germany’s choices on sanctions, relations with Russia and its treatment of Ukrainian refugees would no longer be only questions of national policy; they would test the cohesion of European cooperation and the alliance relationships on which the country’s current foreign-policy position rests.
The unresolved issue is whether the AfD’s rise will remain a powerful regional protest vote or become the basis for a federal challenge capable of reshaping Germany’s institutions, migration policy and international commitments. The elections that follow in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin will help determine how far that pressure extends.
How should Germany’s established parties respond to the AfD’s rise without further deepening the polarisation revealed by the survey?
