AfD landslide in eastern Germany sharpens far-right debate in Wallonia

Updated 7 September 2026, evening CEST — MAGDEBURG, Germany. The far-right Alternative for Germany won 43.8% of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt’s regional election on Sunday, 6 September, but fell three seats short of an outright parliamentary majority, according to preliminary final results reported by Euractiv and the Associated Press.

The AfD secured 39 of the Landtag’s 83 seats, Euractiv reported. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union fell to 17.2%, down from 37.1% in 2021. Reuters reported on Monday that Merz again ruled out cooperation with the AfD and described the CDU’s result as a profound shock for the party.

AfD candidate Ulrich Siegmund is seeking support from other parties or individual legislators. The Associated Press reported that the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, won five seats and that its lead candidate expressed willingness to help an AfD candidate take office. The CDU, Social Democrats, Greens and Die Linke have rejected governing with the AfD, according to Euractiv. The identity of Saxony-Anhalt’s next government therefore remains undecided.

The result tests Germany’s political “firewall”: the refusal by established parties to cooperate with the AfD. The Associated Press notes that the AfD has never entered a German state or federal government. Saxony-Anhalt’s domestic intelligence authority classifies the party’s regional branch as a confirmed right-wing extremist organisation, while the AfD rejects the designation and says its exclusion from government is undemocratic.

The vote has also reopened a Belgian debate. La DH reported on Monday that conditions favourable to the development of the far right exist in Wallonia. That assessment requires an important qualification: electoral evidence still shows a large gap between social discontent and a successful far-right party structure in the region.

The Belgian political research institute CRISP found that Chez Nous, then the principal far-right electoral offer in Wallonia, received 2.8% in the 2024 Walloon election and won no seat. CRISP attributed its failure partly to incomplete candidate lists, weak organisation and the francophone media cordon sanitaire. It nevertheless identified a potential electorate previously dispersed among several protest or right-wing lists.

For Belgium, the immediate impact is political rather than institutional. Germany remains central to EU decisions on economic policy, migration, defence and support for Ukraine, while Reuters describes the AfD as anti-immigration and supportive of restoring relations with Moscow. The next decisive step is coalition building in Magdeburg. Whether the firewall holds—and whether Walloon parties treat the result as a warning about representation, trust and political organisation—will determine the wider significance of Sunday’s vote.