By James Mackenzie
BERLIN, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Voters in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt go to the polls on Sunday in an election where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is hoping to win power for the first time and mark a historic shift in German politics.
State Premier Sven Schulze from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) says the election in Saxony-Anhalt is “a decision that will set the course for Germany.”
Opinion polls in the state have put support for the AfD, which wants to restrict immigration, restore ties with Russia and quit the euro, at more than 40%, 15 to 20 points ahead of the CDU, which rules in a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and pro-free-market Free Democrats (FDP).
Most other parties running have refused to cooperate with the AfD, designated by the local office of Germany’s domestic intelligence service as extremist right-wing, meaning that a CDU-led coalition may keep it from power in Saxony-Anhalt.
But the size of its support, fuelled by disillusion with Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s unpopular government in Berlin, has laid bare how far German politics has moved in the decade or so since the party’s formation in 2013.
‘MY BEAUTIFUL, OLD, SAFE GERMANY’
Ulrich Siegmund, the 35-year-old hoping to become the first AfD state premier, has campaigned for months, drawing crowds to packed rallies in village halls and town squares across the state.
“I want my beautiful, old, safe Germany back,” he tells supporters at his rallies.
Formed in western Germany at the height of the euro zone debt crisis, the AfD has increasingly drawn its support from the formerly communist states in the east, where surveys show a lingering sense of dissatisfaction with the results of reunification in 1990.
Siegmund, who rejects the far-right label, says he speaks “the language of the people” with a smiling approach that avoids the rhetoric of party colleagues like Bjoern Hoecke from the neighbouring state of Thuringia, who has been twice convicted for using Nazi slogans.
He has shrugged off criticism that his policies would deepen the problems of a state with a declining population, which economists say will depend on immigration to fill a shortage of workers in sectors from healthcare to tourism and the state’s large chemicals industry.
The region has suffered along with the rest of Germany during the recent downturn, with unemployment running at around 8%. But economists say Saxony-Anhalt, a heavily rural state, has done relatively well in recent years, with the establishment of new industrial sectors, including logistics and renewable energy.
“Taking a broad view over the past 10 to 15 years, economic development in Saxony-Anhalt has been more than satisfactory. I would even say it has been quite good,” said Thomas Brockmeier, head of the Halle-Dessau Chamber of Industry and Commerce.
Instead, Siegmund has focused on issues ranging from “culturally alien” immigrants and asylum seekers to leftist teachers, gender ideology or the cost to German industry of losing access to cheap Russian oil and gas through support for Ukraine.
Germany’s most influential news magazine, “Der Spiegel”, dubbed Siegmund “Germany’s most dangerous man” in a cover story last month. Siegmund himself, a practised social media user, saw the headline as “good advertising” and posted footage of himself signing the cover on his Instagram account.
DECISIVE ELECTION
Across Europe, anti-establishment parties have made gains and Sunday’s vote will be a test of whether the far-right can form a government in the continent’s largest economy.
The AfD sees Saxony-Anhalt, which will be followed by two other state elections in the northeastern region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and in Berlin this month, as a stepping stone to victory in national elections due in 2029.
Although its support is strongest in the east, the party scored around 20% in elections in the western states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate earlier this year, underlining its growing nationwide appeal.
State governments in Germany make up the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, and have wide powers over education, culture and domestic security and an AfD state government would complicate everyday politics for Merz.
This week, the SPD interior minister of Thuringia warned that an AfD state interior minister would be a “flagrant security risk for the Federal Republic” because of the possibility of security information leaking to extremist groups.
“The consensus-driven model we have been used to within Germany over the last decades is now threatened,” said Janos Richter, an analyst with the Verfassungsblog, a public law forum for constitutional and public law.
Siegmund has promised to recruit politically sympathetic officials from other states to help an AfD government to push through changes to schools, law enforcement and asylum centres, pointing to probable clashes with the federal government and other states.
(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
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