Germany’s Political Shock: AfD Surge Puts Merz Under Siege

Germany’s post-war political order has taken another heavy blow. The AfD won 43.9 per cent in Saxony-Anhalt, crushing Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU on just 17.4 per cent and coming within three seats of an outright majority.

Internationale Politik Quarterly argues that the result could now trigger upheaval far beyond this small eastern state – from cracks in the CDU’s firewall against the AfD to pressure on Merz himself. Behind the electoral shock sits an even deeper failure: Germany’s old economic and security model is broken, while Berlin still lacks convincing answers for what replaces it.

The firewall faces its hardest test

With 39 of 81 seats, the AfD is tantalisingly close to controlling Saxony-Anhalt. One route runs through the BSW, which scraped into parliament with five seats and shares several positions with the AfD, including opposition to the existing political system and warmer relations with Russia.

Another possibility is even more destabilising for Germany’s centre-right: defections from the BSW or CDU.

The CDU has long argued internally over whether its firewall against cooperation with the AfD can survive. If Saxony-Anhalt breaks ranks, the dispute could threaten party unity nationally.

Germany’s old model has collapsed

IPQ traces the AfD breakthrough partly to something much bigger than eastern German discontent.

The economic and geopolitical formula that served Germany for decades – powerful exports, especially to China, cheap Russian gas and American security protection – no longer works.

Germany is rebuilding its neglected armed forces while its economy stagnates and undergoes painful structural change. The commentary’s criticism of Merz and SPD Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil is sharp: Berlin is confronting new problems with ideas rooted in the past.

Merz is paying the price

The Chancellor’s historic unpopularity makes the crisis worse. Half of those who previously voted CDU in Saxony-Anhalt appear to have switched to the AfD.

That will force CDU MPs in Berlin to think increasingly about their own survival ahead of the 2029 federal election.

IPQ identifies North Rhine-Westphalia premier Hendrik Wüst as a potential successor should the CDU/CSU eventually conclude that Merz has become a liability. A regional earthquake could therefore become a leadership crisis in Berlin.

The Bundesrat could become another headache

The damage may reach Germany’s federal machinery. A change of government in Magdeburg could cost the Merz coalition its narrow advantage in the Bundesrat, complicating national policymaking at precisely the moment Germany needs major economic and security reforms.

Instead of restoring stability, Berlin could find itself squeezed between a struggling federal coalition and an increasingly powerful anti-establishment opposition.

The constitution enters the argument

The AfD’s scale also revives one of Germany’s most explosive constitutional questions – whether proceedings to ban the party should be pursued.

Germany’s Constitutional Court has previously outlawed parties judged hostile to the constitutional order, while a 2017 attempt involving the far-right NPD failed partly because the party was too politically insignificant. After the AfD’s 43.9 per cent result in Saxony-Anhalt, insignificance is plainly no longer part of the equation.

The big warning: Germany’s crisis is moving towards Berlin

Saxony-Anhalt is small, unusually old and shaped by its East German history, so its result cannot simply be projected onto the whole country. But the scale of the AfD victory has exposed how vulnerable Germany’s political centre has become.

The immediate problem is Magdeburg. The much bigger one is whether Merz can survive a political system increasingly shaken by economic stagnation, structural upheaval and voters abandoning the parties that once dominated it.