Saxony-Anhalt vote delivers a shock to Germany’s political order

The semi-ostracised opposition party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has won the state parliament election in Saxony-Anhalt. The victory was expected; the numbers still stun. At 43.8% it is the best result for any party in the state since 1990. Turnout, close to 78%, is the highest on record. The Christian Democratic Union fell to 17.2% — its worst showing in 36 years.

The governing camp was routed. Berlin is rattled. The Reichstag is not on fire. Germans, the argument runs, are simply exhausted.

The Saxony-Anhalt election reads like a diagnosis. AfD told voters what they wanted to hear: enough subsidising Ukraine, enough absorbing migration, enough sanctions that look like self-harm. They voted accordingly. The system is in shock; Chancellor Friedrich Merz is on the ropes.

While German officialdom argues over who is more devoted to democracy, the sources of the political bruising are plainer.

September 2026 has been a month of systemic jolts. Several events have laid bare a political, economic and technological crisis. Volkswagen, long a symbol of German industry, is preparing to cut up to 100,000 jobs worldwide by 2030 — the largest restructuring in the group’s 89-year history.

That is only the surface. German industry shed 120,000 jobs in 2025, 50,000 of them in the car sector. Chemicals, mechanical engineering, energy: all are under strain. The old model — cheap Russian gas in, high-quality cars and chemicals out — has broken. Sanctions on Russia, the piece argues, have functioned as sanctions on Germany itself.

Alexander Kunde, a German political scientist, said the political elite was in a kind of panic as the system they built, and the narratives that underpinned it, came apart.

“You know Merz’s rating, somewhere around 13%,” he said. “When a large system collapses, those who stand behind it react. In Saxony-Anhalt about 30 businesses close every day, and there is a knife attack roughly every 12 hours. Merz made a name for himself in a summer interview by saying migration was no longer the central issue, that it had moved to the margins. That is simply not true. It shows how far he is from reality.”

Then came the breach. The ransomware group Rhysida published 1.44 million files from the Berlin administration — 5.8 terabytes, roughly 2,900 hours of HD video. The data were stolen between 7 and 12 August. The gang demanded 30 bitcoin, about €2 million. Berlin did not pay.

What appeared online, according to the report, included plans for critical infrastructure: thermal power plants, fuel tanks, emergency generators, transformer substations, prisons, waterworks, defence firms. Also Bundeswehr-related material: passport and bank data, passwords, 12,000 personal records, 1,800 officials’ mailboxes, correspondence with international companies.

The intrusion began in early August and was discovered only a week later. Intelligence services, the commentary says, are running in circles, while an ordinary German draws a blunt conclusion: they cannot even secure their own servers, yet they promise protection from an enemy in the east.

Saxony-Anhalt, on this reading, is not a victory for the right so much as a defeat for the system. Voters are tired of untruths, prices, migration and sanctions that hollow out plants; tired of politicians who speak of democracy while losing to hackers, damaging the economy and shutting down dissent. 43.8% for AfD is treated here as a cry of despair.

If Merz and his allies do not hear it, the next elections could bring 50% or 55%. And then, the piece warns, no one will be able to say it was only an eastern state. It will be Germany.