The major mobilisation for the AfD and contacts with potential partners

Berlin. The AfD has won a landslide victory in Saxony-Anhalt thanks to a middle-aged male voter with a low to medium level of education, who works in manual labour, feels socially undervalued and is hostile to immigration policies. The profile of the typical AfD voter, however, is not sufficient to explain the far-right party’s success: with 43.8 per cent of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD in fact garnered support across the board throughout the state, capitalising on support from both the most disaffected and the middle class seeking redress. With 39 seats, the AfD falls three seats short of an absolute majority in Magdeburg. Those seats were effectively taken from them by the ‘red-brown’ left-wing Bsw, which entered the Parliament with 5.3 per cent of the vote. Together, the two parties could form a majority. The Bsw is proposing a non-partisan Minister-President, an option already rejected by the triumphant Ulrich Siegmund of the AfD. However, the far right and the ‘red-brown’ bloc remain extremely aligned by their shared proximity to Moscow, stemming from anti-European nationalism in the case of the AfD and anti-Western post-communism in the case of the Bsw. Following the election result in Saxony-Anhalt, both AfD leader Alice Weidel and Bsw leader Sahra Wagenknecht spoke of cutting off aid to Ukraine and strengthening relations with Russia. These comments on foreign policy might not appear to relate to a regional election, but they are clearly a priority for both party leaderships.

However, it is precisely the prospect of collaboration with the AfD that has long been a source of conflict within the BSW: amongst the post-communists who yearn for the GDR, there are those who do not wish to betray the ‘Antifaschismus’ that formally underpinned the East German regime. The results of the 20 September election in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania will also be significant for any potential AfD-BSW talks: There too, the AfD is in the lead (at around 35 per cent, though with the SPD close behind) and there too, the BSW is hovering just below the 5 per cent electoral threshold. Should the situation in Saxony-Anhalt be repeated, dialogue between the AfD and the BSW could develop on two fronts. In Mecklenburg, too, the two parties are united by their focus on Moscow. It is in Lubmin, in Vorpommern, that the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines arrive. Both the far right and the ‘red-browns’ are pushing to repair the pipelines immediately and re-establish energy ties with Russia.

Although the AfD and BSW achieved very different results in terms of percentage shares, they both draw support in part from similar social segments in the east. Whilst BSW capitalises on what remains of ‘Ostalgia’ for the GDR, the AfD has transformed East German anger into a demand for ethnic identity. The AfD’s vote in Saxony-Anhalt has confirmed a demographic trend that has been emerging for years now. The first factor is the party’s ability to bring back to the polls those who once abstained. According to Infratest dimap, the AfD secured around 170,000 votes in the state from those who had abstained in 2021. Then there are the votes taken from the CDU: more than 80,000. It is interesting to note that the AfD also received almost 20,000 votes from former voters of the liberal FDP. In this case, the far right is likely being voted for because of certain libertarian right-wing minority positions that have always been dear to the now-declining FDP. In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD is effectively the leading party across all occupational groups and stands out, with over 60 per cent of the vote, amongst blue-collar and manual workers. The far right enjoys particular support among those with lower educational qualifications, but this does not mean it has failed to garner support among what is supposed to be the middle class: the party secured 50 per cent of the votes cast by office workers and an absolute majority among the self-employed. Over half of men in Saxony-Anhalt voted for the AfD, while support among women stood at 40 per cent. The party holds an absolute majority in the 35–44 and 45–59 age groups, whilst among the over-60s it stands at just over a third, closely followed by the CDU. This, too, is no coincidence. Among middle-aged citizens are the ‘Wendekinder’ – the generation born in the final decade of the GDR, who grew up experiencing reunification through what is known as ‘double socialisation’, that is, a violent existential and familial rupture as they transitioned from one system to another. Frustration, resentment, and the demand for identity to be valued: all of this has contributed to the success of a party such as the AfD. The responsibility of government, however, is another matter entirely, and it is here – perhaps in Saxony-Anhalt of all places – that the traditional parties could begin to erode the far-right’s success.