# AfD Rallies Ahead of Saxony-Anhalt Vote That Could Make History

> With polls putting the AfD near 41 percent on the eve of Sunday's Saxony-Anhalt election, Ulrich Siegmund's campaign is closing in on what would be the first far-right led state government in Germany since the Second World War.

- Source: Berlin Today
- Canonical URL: https://berlintoday.eu/article/afd-rallies-ahead-of-saxony-anhalt-vote-that-could-make-history
- Author: Doug Brown
- Section: Politics
- Published: 2026-09-05T11:51:59.497Z
- Updated: 2026-09-05T11:51:59.497Z
- Tags: Germany, AfD, Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, election, far right, politics

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Crowds waving German flags and Alternative for Germany banners packed a market square in Saxony-Anhalt as the party closed out its campaign ahead of Sunday's state election, a vote that could hand the far right control of a German state government for the first time since the Second World War.

Polls put the AfD at around 41 percent heading into the vote, a lead large enough that an outright majority, and with it the premiership for the party's lead candidate, is within realistic reach rather than a distant possibility.

## The Man Behind the Numbers

That lead candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, has built his campaign less on detailed policy pitches than on discipline, personal charm and a practiced ability to sidestep pointed questions without appearing evasive. A former marketing professional with a background in business psychology who once co-founded a room fragrance company, Siegmund has also cultivated a large following on TikTok, giving him a direct line to voters that bypasses traditional campaign coverage entirely.

That combination of media savvy and carefully managed public appearances has made him one of the AfD's most effective communicators nationally, a factor widely credited with helping turn a strong regional showing into what now looks like a genuine shot at leading a state government outright.

## A Vote With National Weight

A win of this scale would do more than hand the AfD control of a single state legislature. It would mark the first time since 1945 that a party widely characterized as far right has led a German state government, a threshold that carries deep symbolic weight in a country that has built much of its postwar political identity around guarding against exactly that outcome.

For the AfD's rivals, and for the informal firewall that mainstream German parties have maintained against cooperating with the party, a Saxony-Anhalt win would be the most serious test yet of whether that strategy can hold once the AfD is no longer just a protest vote but an actual governing option in at least one state.

## Why It Matters

Saxony-Anhalt is a small state by national population standards, but the outcome of Sunday's vote is likely to reverberate well beyond its borders. A decisive AfD win would embolden the party's campaigns in other eastern German states and intensify pressure within the CDU nationally over whether to keep rejecting cooperation with the AfD as it wins one region after another.

Whatever happens at the ballot box, the scale of the crowds and the confidence on display at the campaign's closing rally underscored how far the AfD has moved from the political margins in parts of eastern Germany, and how quickly Sunday's result could reshape the debate over the party's place in German politics.

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Originally published by Berlin Today. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://berlintoday.eu/article/afd-rallies-ahead-of-saxony-anhalt-vote-that-could-make-history.