AfD Eyes First Far-Right State Power Since WWII — SkimNews
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- AfD leads Saxony-Anhalt polls at 42% (Infratest-Dimap, Aug 24–25 survey of 1,511 voters) ahead of Sunday's regional vote, while also polling 28% nationally after taking second place in the 2025 federal election
- Germany's "firewall" strategy — in which mainstream parties refuse coalition deals with extremist groups — may not be enough to block AfD from government given its poll lead, and a win would be the first breach of that postwar guardrail
- Saxony-Anhalt AfD's government manifesto calls for banning Pride flags in schools, creating separate classrooms for refugee children, defining a "healthy family" as father-mother-children, and revising history curricula to emphasize Germany's "positive aspects"
- The state's Office for the Protection of the Constitution has designated Saxony-Anhalt's AfD as right-wing extremist, and experts note party members' ties to far-right, ethnonationalist movements — a concern because state power would include oversight of state-level domestic intelligence
- AfD's Russia connections include lawmakers who have visited and praised Moscow and a manifesto declaring interest in good relations "economically and culturally," according to BBC and DW reports cited in the piece
- Cambridge historian Marcus Böick, a Saxony-Anhalt native, warned the outcome could have "ripple effects throughout Germany, throughout the European Union and thus also on a global stage" because "once they're in power, it's very hard to get rid of them"
Why it matters: If AfD wins Sunday, it gains control of Saxony-Anhalt's education, cultural policy, policing, and state-level domestic intelligence — despite being formally designated right-wing extremist by the state. The postwar firewall was designed to block exactly this scenario, and a win would be the first such breach in German history while AfD already polls 28% nationally.
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