Merz Warns Extremism Is Entering Parliaments as AfD Speaker Claims CDU Votes Backed Him
On Wednesday, October 7, 2026, Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that extremism was entering Germany's legislatures. Reuters reported that his remarks followed the previous day's election of AfD lawmaker Tobias Rausch as president of the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament. Merz urged other politicians not to cooperate with the AfD, noting that the secret-ballot tallies showed lawmakers from the far left and other parties had also helped vote Rausch in.
The controversy escalated the same day when Rausch told interviewers that members of Merz's Christian Democrats (CDU) had voted for him, and told the dpa news agency that four CDU lawmakers had agreed to back AfD candidate Ulrich Siegmund for state premier in December. Because the ballot was secret, the claim cannot be independently verified; CDU parliamentary leader and caretaker premier Sven Schulze declined to comment. The SPD, Greens and The Left had announced opposition to Rausch, while the CDU leadership had recommended abstention: had all 14 CDU deputies present abstained, there would have been 14 abstentions rather than five.
The AfD's first-place finish in last month's state election has put Merz's government under pressure and raised questions about the usefulness of the firewall convention under which mainstream parties refuse coalition or cooperation with the AfD. Rausch promised to listen to differing views and decide transparently, while several hundred protesters in Magdeburg called on other parties not to cooperate with the AfD.
Analysts say a December defection that installs an AfD government would be a major turning point in postwar German politics, and even if the claims prove unfounded, the firewall's durability in the eastern states has become a central question in Berlin. CDU deputy chair Karin Prien said later that if CDU lawmakers were to blame, there must be consequences.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 柏林国会大厦内的联邦议院全会大厅。摄影：Gerd Eichmann，CC BY 4.0，来源：Wikimedia Commons
