Europe’s centre fears nationalist wave after AfD victory but only has itself to blame

Saxony-Anhalt win part of wider trend driven by mainstream policy failures and gradual normalisation of far right ideas The numbers speak for themselves: Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a party that dabbles in Nazi imagery, distinguishes between “biological” and “passport” Germans, and is too extreme even for France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen, nearly doubled its score in Sunday’s state election in Saxony-Anhalt to 43.8% of the vote. Meanwhile, the centre-right CDU of the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, collapsed to 17.2%, less than half its total in the same race five years ago, and the centre-left SPD – Germany’s other main party of government for the past 60-odd years – scraped 9.3%. The least that can be said is that the centre did not hold. But the score is the party’s strongest-ever state result and puts it closer to governing a German state than any far-right party since the second world war. Sweden holds legislative elections next weekend.

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