Saxony-Anhalt win part of wider trend driven by mainstream policy failures and gradual normalisation of far right ideas
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The numbers speak for themselves: Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a party that dabbles in Nazi imagery, distinguishes between “biological” and “passport” Germans, and is too extreme even for France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen, nearly doubled its score in Sunday’s state election in Saxony-Anhalt to 43.8% of the vote.
Meanwhile, the centre-right CDU of the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, collapsed to 17.2%, less than half its total in the same race five years ago, and the centre-left SPD – Germany’s other main party of government for the past 60-odd years – scraped 9.3%. The least that can be said is that the centre did not hold.
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Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/07/afd-germany-far-right-saxony-anhalt-nationalist-wave-europe-analysis
Author : Jon Henley Europe correspondent
Publish date : 2026-09-07 16:13:00
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