Chancellor Friedrich Merz ruled out working with the Alternative for Germany yesterday after the far-right party surged into first place in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt but conceded the result had shaken his party ‘to its very foundations’.
The AfD is appealing to legislators from Merz’s conservatives to support its bid to rule the eastern state, in what would be the first time a far-right party takes power at state level in postwar Germany.
The election result could test the longstanding refusal of Germany’s mainstream parties, including Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU), to work with the AfD, a policy known as the “firewall”.
The AfD says this is undemocratic.
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