The AfD Wins Saxony-Anhalt But Falls Three Seats Short
The Chancellor Answered A Free Election With A Threat
Before there was a government, before there were even talks, Berlin was discussing federal coercion and a party ban. The voters of Saxony-Anhalt are being told what their ballot is allowed to mean.
There is, as yet, no government in Magdeburg. There are not even talks. What there is, one day after the count, is a chancellor talking about correction. Looking at Saxony-Anhalt and at migration policy, Friedrich Merz said that if lines were crossed the federal government would do everything to put it right, and added: "Das Grundgesetz gilt auch für Sachsen-Anhalt." The Basic Law applies in Saxony-Anhalt too. It applies to chancellors as well, and Article 20 says that all state authority proceeds from the people, exercised in elections.
Klaus-Rüdiger Mai's point in Tichys Einblick is not that Merz has broken a rule but that he has revealed what he takes the rule to be. The Basic Law is a protection of citizens against an overreaching state; in this reading it has become a set of implementing regulations for the state against the citizens. The precedent he reaches for is Thuringia in February 2020, when Angela Merkel announced from Pretoria that the election of a minister-president she disliked "unverzeihlich ist und deshalb auch das Ergebnis wieder rückgängig gemacht werden muss" — and it duly was.
An election result that the losers are entitled to correct is not a result. It is a consultation.
The ban followed within twenty-four hours. Hendrik Wüst, minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia and the first CDU politician to say it out loud, wants a working group to establish whether an application to the Federal Constitutional Court would succeed. If the examination says the party can be banned, he told an interviewer, that is for him a "Handlungsbefehl, diese Verfassung zu schützen" — an order to act, to protect the constitution. He faces his own state election in April 2027 and is spoken of as a successor to Merz. Both facts belong in the reader's assessment.
None of which obliges the winners to be gracious about their own side. Before the vote Ulrich Siegmund said he would govern only with an absolute majority; three seats short of one, the party extended a hand to every group in the Landtag. Junge Freiheit put the question to its own readers as Wählertäuschung oder Scheinangebot — deception of the voters, or a sham offer. And in Magdeburg the CDU's Sven Schulze had himself elected chairman of his party's parliamentary group while remaining minister-president, uniting executive and legislature in one man, which is a curious way to defend constitutional order from somebody else.
There is, as yet, no government in Magdeburg. There are not even talks. What there is, one day after the count, is a chancellor talking about correction. Looking at Saxony-Anhalt and at migration policy, Friedrich Merz said that if lines were crossed the federal government would do everything to put it right, and added: "Das Grundgesetz gilt auch für Sachsen-Anhalt." The Basic Law applies in Saxony-Anhalt too. So it does. It applies to chancellors as well, and Article 20 provides that all state authority proceeds from the people and is exercised by the people in elections — not from the chancellery, and not from a party executive in Berlin.
Klaus-Rüdiger Mai's point in Tichys Einblick is not that Merz has broken a rule but that he has revealed what he takes the rule to be. The Basic Law is a protection of citizens against an overreaching state; in this reading it has quietly become a set of implementing regulations for the state against the citizens. The precedent he reaches for is Thuringia in February 2020, when Angela Merkel announced from Pretoria that the election of a minister-president she disliked "unverzeihlich ist und deshalb auch das Ergebnis wieder rückgängig gemacht werden muss" — unforgivable, and therefore to be undone. It duly was. Whatever one thought of Thomas Kemmerich, a result the losing side is entitled to reverse is not a result.
An election result that the losers are entitled to correct is not a result. It is a consultation.
The ban followed within twenty-four hours. Hendrik Wüst, minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia and, as he pointed out himself, the first CDU politician to say it out loud, wants a working group to establish whether an application to the Federal Constitutional Court would succeed. If the examination says the party can be banned, he told his interviewer, that is for him a "Handlungsbefehl, diese Verfassung zu schützen" — an order to act, to protect the constitution. He had already called the AfD a Nazi party more than once. He faces his own state election on 25 April 2027 and is spoken of as a successor to a weakened chancellor. Both facts belong in the reader's assessment of the timing.
The objection to all of this is well known and should be met rather than waved away: the Saxony-Anhalt AfD is classified by the state's own intelligence service as a confirmed right-wing extremist endeavour, so the vigilance is not invented. Two things follow, and only two. The classification is an administrative finding by an agency of the executive, subject to court review, and it does not disqualify a party from standing or from governing. And it was in force, publicly, throughout the campaign. Every one of the 576,037 people who voted for the party knew it. An argument that treats those voters as having been tricked is an argument that has stopped counting them as voters.
None of which obliges the winners to be gracious about their own side, and the honest part of this press has not been. Before the vote Ulrich Siegmund said he would govern only with an absolute majority. Three seats short of one, the party extended a hand to every group in the Landtag. Junge Freiheit put the question to its own readers as Wählertäuschung oder Scheinangebot — deception of the voters, or a sham offer — which is a sharper question than any the Union has asked itself this week.
And in Magdeburg the CDU's Sven Schulze, defeated but still minister-president, had himself elected chairman of his party's parliamentary group by eight votes to seven, uniting executive and legislature in one man. Mai's reading is that Berlin wanted a sergeant on the ground, there to make sure no Christian Democrat is caught in a corner of the Landtag talking to a deputy from the largest party in it. That is a curious way to defend the separation of powers from somebody else, and it is the sort of thing that gets noticed in a state where 43.8 per cent of the electorate has just said it no longer believes what it is told.
