AfD Wins Saxony-Anhalt Parliament Presidency, a First Since 1945, Testing Germany's 'Firewall'
On Tuesday, October 6, 2026, the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament convened in Magdeburg and elected Tobias Rausch of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as its president. Reuters reported it was the first time since the end of World War Two that a far-right party held such a post in Germany. Rausch won in the first round with 48 of 82 votes; the AfD holds 39 seats and the pro-Russian BSW's five lawmakers had publicly pledged support.
The AfD won the September 6 state election but fell three seats short of an absolute majority, and its candidate for state premier, Ulrich Siegmund, plans to seek parliamentary backing in December. Reuters noted the party still lacks a clear path to forming what would be its first state government, because mainstream parties refuse cooperation under the 'firewall' convention. Outside the parliament, about 400 protesters gathered peacefully, read aloud Germany's constitution and held a long red banner reading 'No cooperation with the extreme right.'
The arithmetic caused alarm in Berlin: Rausch's total exceeded the AfD and BSW's combined seats by four votes, fuelling suspicion that lawmakers from mainstream parties, possibly the Christian Democrats, had defied instructions in the secret ballot. Le Monde reported the vote further destabilised Chancellor Friedrich Merz's CDU-SPD coalition, with senior Social Democrats publicly criticising their partner and the two sides accusing each other of endangering the alliance.
Merz responded on October 7, warning that extremism was entering Germany's legislatures and urging other politicians not to cooperate with the AfD. The episode is widely seen as a test of the firewall: if the AfD succeeds in forming a government in December, it would produce postwar Germany's first AfD state premier, with far-reaching implications for the 2029 federal election.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 马格德堡的萨克森-安哈尔特州议会大楼。摄影：W. Bulach，CC BY-SA 4.0，来源：Wikimedia Commons
