Thousands Protest AfD After Saxony-Anhalt State Win — SkimNews
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- AfD won nearly 44% in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, the best result for a nativist party since the Nazi period, and came just three votes short of a governing majority under its candidate Ulrich Siegmund.
- Police reported 5,000 protesters at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate while organizers claimed more than 14,000, with additional rallies in Potsdam, Dresden, Münster, Göttingen, Aachen, Bamberg, Darmstadt, and Halberstadt, plus a protest camp in Halle.
- Germany's domestic intelligence agency has listed the AfD's state chapter as rightwing extremist since 2023, citing threats to democratic norms, while the AfD platform calls for mass deportations and rollbacks of renewable energy and public broadcasting funding.
- Two more state elections on 20 September in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania carry the same momentum, with the AfD leading voter-intent polls around 35% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and running third in Berlin at roughly 20%.
- Buchenwald memorial director Jens-Christian Wagner told the Berlin rally the Saxony-Anhalt result was "a disgrace that makes you furious and stunned" that "should not be accepted in silence."
- Chancellor Friedrich Merz has vowed to stay in office and push painful reforms to revive Europe's top economy, but coalition partner SPD has signaled willingness to backtrack on the most unpopular measures.
Why it matters: The AfD came within three votes of taking power in Saxony-Anhalt and now leads polls in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with Berlin's election also looming on September 20 — putting the far right on the brink of executive power in two more German states while Chancellor Merz's already-unpopular CDU/SPD coalition fractures over its own reform agenda.
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