BSW Breaks Germany’s AfD ‘Firewall’—But Will It Actually Put the Far Right in Power?
BSW says it will discuss projects with AfD after the party's historic Saxony-Anhalt victory, challenging Germany's firewall while still rejecting an AfD-led coalition and both leading candidates for premier.
Germany's political “firewall” against the Alternative for Germany has developed its first serious crack in Saxony-Anhalt—but viral claims that the left-populist BSW has already agreed to install an AfD government go beyond the evidence.
The distinction may decide who governs. AfD won 43.8% of the vote and 39 of the state parliament's 83 seats, its strongest result and the first postwar state-election victory of this scale for a German far-right party. It finished three seats short of an absolute majority. BSW crossed the five-percent threshold and therefore holds enough seats to influence the result.
BSW state leader Thomas Schulze said his party has no “Brandmauer,” or firewall, preventing it from speaking with AfD. His deputy Claudia Wittig said BSW would discuss concrete projects, including energy prices, rather than reject proposals solely because AfD introduced them. That challenges the convention through which Germany's established parties have refused cooperation with AfD.
It is not yet a coalition. BSW federal co-chair Amira Mohamed Ali says her party will vote for neither AfD candidate Ulrich Siegmund nor CDU candidate Sven Schulze as minister-president. She has reiterated that BSW will not enter an AfD coalition, citing disagreements over welfare, military spending and people inside AfD whom she considers extremist. BSW instead proposes a non-partisan premier who would seek changing majorities across the chamber.
That model could still transform German politics. If BSW votes for AfD bills on electricity prices, migration controls or relations with Russia, the firewall would become porous in practice even without cabinet seats. AfD could demonstrate that it can convert election victories into policy. BSW could say it is respecting voters and judging legislation by content rather than party label.
The two parties do overlap. Both attack establishment politics, oppose sending more weapons to Ukraine, favor restoring economic relations with Russia and criticize large-scale irregular migration. BSW combines those positions with left-wing economics, stronger welfare protection and suspicion of corporate power. AfD emphasizes nationalism, cultural conservatism, lower taxes and restrictions on immigration.
Those differences are not decorative. AfD wants policies BSW describes as social retrenchment; BSW's labor and redistribution program conflicts with parts of AfD's market-oriented wing. The parties also attract different voters, even when anger at Berlin, energy costs and migration brings them to similar conclusions.
Supporters of project cooperation call the firewall undemocratic because it can prevent the largest party from influencing government. They argue that rejecting every AfD motion, even a useful one, turns parliamentary procedure into political theater and deepens resentment among voters who already feel excluded.
Critics answer that the firewall exists for reasons rooted in German history and present conduct, not mere competition. Saxony-Anhalt's AfD organization is classified as right-wing extremist by domestic intelligence. Opponents fear that routine cooperation normalizes ethnic nationalism and weakens institutional resistance one vote at a time.
There is also a tactical problem for BSW. It can extract concessions because AfD needs help, but any visible success may primarily benefit AfD. Voters seeking an anti-establishment government might eventually choose the larger party directly. Conversely, refusing all cooperation could make BSW look like another component of the establishment it was created to oppose.
Energy provides an early test. AfD and BSW both criticize costly climate policy and sanctions-related economic damage, but a state government cannot independently reverse federal sanctions, determine wholesale gas prices or redesign the national electricity market. It can influence planning rules, local generation, industrial support and votes in the Bundesrat. Promises must therefore be measured against state powers.
Migration is similar. Saxony-Anhalt can alter enforcement priorities, reception policy and administrative resources, but asylum law and border control are substantially federal and European. A state-level agreement could be politically important while delivering less than campaign slogans imply.
Three scenarios are plausible. BSW could support a non-partisan administration with rotating majorities; it could cooperate with AfD on selected measures while keeping it outside government; or negotiations could fail, forcing a fragile mainstream arrangement or another election. None is the same as a formal left-right coalition.
The mechanics of the premier vote may intensify the drama. AfD is close enough to a majority that a few votes, abstentions or absences could change the outcome in later rounds, depending on the constitutional procedure applied. Secret ballots can expose gaps between party instructions and individual members. Public declarations must therefore be compared with the recorded result and the governing agreement that follows.
What to watch next
Watch the recorded minister-president vote, written BSW conditions and whether talks produce policies rather than photographs. The decisive evidence will be budgets, committee posts and confidence votes. Is BSW building a new form of issue-based democracy, lending legitimacy to a party it says contains extremists, or testing whether voters can demand change without giving either side unchecked power?