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The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is “very, very close” to taking power, its deputy parliamentary leader has told the BBC, after a historic victory in elections for the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. <\/b><\/p>\n
Sunday’s preliminary results show it fell three seats short of an outright majority, with 43.8% of the vote. It is now seeking support from other parties or individuals in order to govern.<\/p>\n
While most German political parties refuse to work with the AfD, Beatrix von Storch called for its opponents to enter talks and said: “You cannot say I do not accept the vote of the people”. <\/p>\n
Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he was “deeply shocked” by the result, describing it as “seismic… not just in the country but also in my own political party and I take that very seriously”.<\/p>\n
His party, the conservative CDU, saw its share of the vote almost halved to 17.2% in the state’s preliminary results.<\/p>\n
Merz said it was not possible to return to “business as usual”, adding that the country needed “profound reforms” and the CDU needed to “reach people at an emotional level. <\/p>\n
“This election result is a seismic result not just in the country but also in my own political party and I take that very seriously,” he said. <\/p>\n
No far-right party has controlled a German state since World War Two, and governing at state level would mean powers over policing and local education.<\/p>\n
Von Storch said the state’s results “were on the table and now democrats have to talk to [one] another. This is what democracy demands”.<\/p>\n
She added that if parties refused to work with the AfD, “then we might end up in severe chaos and maybe we have a new election”.<\/p>\n
Her comments were echoed by AfD’s leader in Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, who told a news conference on Monday that the party had won a “clear mandate to govern”.<\/p>\n
The state’s defeated premier, the CDU’s Sven Schulze, also said the mandate to govern Saxony-Anhalt “now lies with the AfD”.<\/p>\n
Saxony-Anhalt has a small population of 2.1 million and the AfD in the state is assessed by domestic intelligence as “right-wing extremist”, a classification rejected by Siegmund, 35.<\/p>\n
The party’s plans for Saxony-Anhalt, which include segregating child refugees into special classes and setting up a task-force to help detain and deport migrants who no longer have the right to be in the state, are highly controversial within Germany.<\/p>\n
Siegmund said discussions with other parties were initiated on Sunday night and could potentially take days or weeks to conclude. <\/p>\n
“We reach out to everybody first, we will have consultations and then we’ll see whether [there are] individual parliamentary groups or MPs who would be willing to help us,” he added.<\/p>\n
The AfD is currently heading for 39 seats in the 83-seat state parliament instead of the 42 needed for an outright majority, although the result has not yet been finalised.<\/p>\n
Von Storch told the BBC the AfD was talking to individuals within the CDU group – the largest party in both the state’s outgoing coalition and Germany’s government – because they were “very, very unhappy with their own party”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n