Germany Politics Election
German Chancellor and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party leader Friedrich Merz, left, and Saxony-Anhalt State Governor and top candidate Sven Schulze give a press statement after visiting UPM Biochemicals in Leuna, Germany, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026.
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An eastern German region is voting in an election that could bring to power the first far-right state government in the nation’s post-World War II history. The vote for the state legislature in Saxony-Anhalt, a region of 2.1 million people west of Berlin, has gained outsized prominence because it represents the best chance yet of a governor’s post for the far-right, anti-migration Alternative for Germany, or AfD. That would be the biggest prize in the party’s 13-year history, at a time when there’s widespread discontent with an unpopular national government that has yet to persuade voters it can get the country’s sluggish economy moving.
