Far-right AfD wins vote in Germany’s Saxony-Anhalt state: Exit polls

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has won the election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, according to exit polls, becoming the first far-right party to take power at state level since World War II.

The AfD won 44.5 percent of the vote, exit polls for the ARD broadcaster suggested on Sunday. That is more than twice the 18.5 percent for the incumbent centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“We have achieved exactly what we wanted to achieve,” said AfD’s lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund. “We have made history in this state.”

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel also hailed a “historic” result, which has given the far-right party a ‌clear mandate to govern, though it was not immediately clear whether it would be able to form a government.

“The reality is the AfD has got the lion’s share of the votes in this election, according to the exit polls. But the question is: is it enough to get them control of the state? Right now, we cannot say for sure,” reported Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane from Magdeburg in eastern Germany.

Exit polls suggest the party has narrowly missed securing an absolute majority in the state parliament in Magdeburg.

Siegmund said he wanted to extend a hand to all parties willing to bring about a fundamental political transformation in the state. However, the AfD will not bend to other parties’ will, he stressed.

The AfD has never participated in a ruling coalition in Germany’s 16 states nor its federal government, as all other mainstream parties refuse to work with it, a policy infamously known as the “firewall”.