AfD’s 44% Shock: The Two Elections That Could Put Merz Under Severe Pressure

The AfD’s landslide 43.8% victory in Saxony-Anhalt has changed Germany’s political balance. On September 20, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin vote next, with the party leading in the former and seeking even greater political normalization in the capital.

The AfD’s 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt was not simply another strong result for Germany’s far right.

It was a political earthquake.

Alternative for Germany more than doubled its strength, left the CDU at just 17.2% and won 39 of the 83 seats in the regional parliament, recording the strongest election result in its history.

Friedrich Merz now faces the most difficult question yet:

Was Saxony-Anhalt an isolated explosion of eastern German discontent — or the first piece of a much larger domino effect?

The answer may begin to emerge very soon.

On September 20, voters go to the polls in both Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin.

Saxony-Anhalt: From protest party to 43.8%

The September 6 result broke another political barrier.

The AfD won 43.8%, compared with just 17.2% for the CDU, opening a 26.6-point gap over Germany’s traditional centre-right.

Turnout reached a very high 77.8%, making it harder to dismiss the result as a product of low mobilization or a small but angry electoral minority.

The AfD did not win because everyone else stayed home.

It won in a high-turnout election.

That may be the most troubling aspect of the result for Germany’s mainstream parties.

The firewall comes under real pressure

The AfD did not win an outright majority.

With 39 seats in an 83-seat parliament, it still needs either a coalition partner or external support to form a government.

Germany’s mainstream parties continue to reject cooperation with the AfD, maintaining the so-called Brandmauer — the political firewall designed to keep the far right out of government.

But for the first time, pressure on that firewall is becoming serious.

The BSW of Sahra Wagenknecht entered the parliament with 5.3%, while its regional leadership has left open the possibility of supporting an AfD-led government.

If such a scenario were to materialize, Germany would enter largely uncharted political territory.

The question is no longer only how many votes the AfD can win.

It is whether political bridges are beginning to emerge that could eventually convert electoral strength into governing power.

September 20: The next test in the East

The first major stress test comes in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

The latest polling trends give the AfD a clear lead.

DAWUM’s September 3 average puts the party at 35.9%, with the SPD at 30%.

The Left follows at 11%.

And the CDU?

Just 9.1%.

For Merz’s party, that figure may be even more painful than the AfD’s lead itself.

The CDU, the party leading the federal government of Europe’s largest economy, risks finishing fourth in a German state election.

From 16.7% to nearly 36%

The speed of the shift is equally striking.

In the 2021 Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania election, the AfD won 16.7%.

It is now polling close to 36%.

The SPD, by contrast, won 39.6% in 2021 and is now running roughly ten points lower.

If the trend is confirmed at the ballot box, the AfD will have won two former East German states within the space of two weeks.

At that point, it will become much harder for Berlin to portray its rise as a regional exception.

Then comes Berlin — and the symbolism changes

The second September 20 election may be even more important symbolically.

Because this is Berlin itself.

The German capital has a very different social, economic and political profile from the eastern states where the AfD has traditionally been strongest.

And yet the party is now firmly in contention near the top.

In an Infratest dimap poll published by RBB on September 2, the CDU stood at 21%, Die Linke at 19%, while the AfD and the Greens were tied at 18%.

The SPD was down at just 11%.

A more recent INSA poll on September 4 put the CDU at 20%, Die Linke at 19% and the AfD again at 18%, with the SPD and Greens at 15%.

The AfD is not leading in Berlin.

But the fact that it is consistently polling around 18% in the capital is politically significant in itself.

Merz’s problem is not only the AfD

For the chancellor, the problem has two levels.

The first is obvious: the AfD is becoming stronger.

The second is potentially more dangerous internally: the CDU is weakening sharply in parts of the country where it once formed a central pillar of the political system.

In Saxony-Anhalt, it fell to 17.2%.

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, polls put it near 9%.

Even in Berlin, where it remains in first place, it is hovering around 20%-21%.

If the September 20 results are poor, the debate will no longer be only about how to contain the AfD.

It will also be about whether Merz’s strategy is capable of containing it at all.

Why the AfD now has momentum

The biggest change may not be only in the numbers.

It is also psychological.

For years, some German voters could view the AfD as a protest vote while still considering any realistic path to government almost impossible.

That perception is beginning to change.

As a party moves from 10% to 20%, then 30%, and eventually close to 44%, it looks less marginal in the eyes of its own electorate.

Electoral success produces political normalization.

And political normalization can generate additional support.

That is precisely the momentum Germany’s traditional parties now fear.

Europe is watching Germany

The consequences do not stop at Germany’s borders.

Germany remains the European Union’s largest economy and one of the most influential political forces in Brussels.

Its decisions shape European fiscal policy, defence, Ukraine, Russia, migration, the green transition and industrial competitiveness.

A deep shift in Germany’s party system could therefore alter the balance of the EU as a whole.

That matters especially because the AfD takes positions that diverge sharply from the current European mainstream on several key issues, including migration and relations with Moscow.

The big question: Can the Brandmauer survive 40%?

For decades, post-war German politics relied on a strong institutional and political reflex against the extremes.

The rise of the AfD is now testing that model in a way that would have seemed almost unthinkable only a few years ago.

Maintaining a firewall against a party polling at 10% is relatively straightforward.

It becomes much more difficult when that party approaches 44%, occupies nearly half the seats in a regional parliament and begins winning elections one after another.

Saxony-Anhalt posed the question.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin may reveal how deep the phenomenon has become.

Ten days that could reshape German politics

September 20 will not decide the future of the federal government.

But it could change the political environment in which that government operates.

If the AfD wins Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and simultaneously posts another strong result in Berlin, Merz will face a much more difficult reality:

the AfD will no longer look merely like the dominant protest force of eastern Germany.

It will increasingly look like a party capable of reshaping the political agenda across the country.

The Saxony-Anhalt election showed the size of the wave.

The two elections on September 20 will show whether that wave is already turning into a political domino effect — and whether Germany’s famous firewall can still hold when the AfD is no longer at the margins, but near the top.

Source: pagenews.gr