AfD's Likely Rise to Power in Saxony-Anhalt Stems from Decades of Eastern German Abandonment, But Its Policies Would Worsen the Crisis
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/marcus-b-ick. "My home state is set to hand a breakthrough to the German far right. It’s a disaster decades in the making | Marcus Böick | The Guardian." August 27, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The author argues that his home region in eastern Germany is about to elect the far-right AfD party to lead a state government for the first time since WWII, and this isn't surprising given decades of economic decline, abandonment by the state, and feelings of being treated as second-class citizens since reunification. However, he argues the AfD's actual policies—like wanting mass deportations while the region desperately needs workers—would only make people's already difficult lives worse, not better.
Conclusion
The AfD's probable electoral breakthrough in Saxony-Anhalt is the product of decades of legitimate grievances stemming from post-reunification abandonment, but the party's actual policies are hollow and would deepen rather than solve the region's structural problems.
Premises
- Since the 1991 economic shock of rapid privatization, Saxony-Anhalt has suffered sustained economic decline: mass unemployment, industrial collapse, and outmigration of skilled young people.
- The state has progressively withdrawn from rural areas over 35 years, closing schools, hospitals, courts, and police stations, leaving residents feeling neglected by both regional and national institutions.
- East Germans remain measurably poorer, own less wealth, inherit less, and have weaker career prospects than western Germans, fostering an entrenched sense of being 'second-class citizens' even among generations born after reunification.
- The AfD has successfully channeled this accumulated resentment through social media, local networks, and community spaces, translating abandonment into electoral support.
- The AfD's core policy proposals are self-contradictory and harmful: for example, advocating mass 'remigration' while businesses and hospitals desperately need skilled workers, or expressing nostalgia for authoritarian regimes (Nazi or GDR) while claiming to offer a positive future.
- A party with openly extremist factions holding governmental power over policing, judiciary, education, and cultural affairs for the first time since 1945 represents a historic and dangerous threshold in German democracy.
Assumptions
- Voter support for the AfD is primarily driven by genuine socioeconomic grievance rather than ideological commitment to its extremist positions.
- The AfD's stated policies, if implemented, would function as described (e.g., remigration would reduce the labor pool) rather than being merely rhetorical without practical follow-through.
- There existed a viable alternative path after reunification that would have avoided the region's economic collapse and resulting resentment.
- The 'firewall' against far-right cooperation is a meaningful and desirable norm worth preserving.
- Structural/economic grievances translate rationally into political behavior, even when the chosen political vehicle contradicts the voter's own interests.