As the Bible study session wrapped up, leaving worshippers to mingle over cake and coffee, Fatemeh, 44, fought back tears as the conversation turned to Sunday’s state election in Saxony-Anhalt. They ended up in Saxony-Anhalt, where, as they await a final decision on their asylum claim, she has watched him blossom into a gifted athlete and develop a knack for repairing vehicles. Looming over their lives, however, are the politics of Saxony-Anhalt.
Polls have suggested that the election on Sunday could yield Germany’s first-ever state government led by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), shattering a postwar taboo and leaving Fatemeh and her son’s fate in the hands of a party that has promised to launch deportations “from day one”. That possibility has left her racked with worry. Polls suggest the state’s AfD, whose antisemitic, anti-Islam and anti-migrant discourse has contributed to authorities classifying the party as “firmly rightwing extremist”, is poised to win the most votes.
A strong showing in the election could allow it to govern Saxony-Anhalt, turning the eastern state into Germany’s first testing ground for the AfD’s long-running hostility towards migrants, including refugees, Muslims and the LGBTQ+ community. Calls were coming in daily, she said, as people wrestled with whether the time had come to pack up their lives and start over again somewhere else. In June, Dreßler’s organisation appealed to Germany’s 15 other states, calling on them to prepare to take in refugees from Saxony-Anhalt after the election.
We don’t know what will happen after the elections.” Tensions have run high in Saxony-Anhalt since late 2024 when a Saudi man drove his car into a crowded Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six people and injuring hundreds more. Authorities described the attacker as an anti-Islam activist who was sympathetic to the far right. Even so, rightwing voices seized on the moment to scapegoat migrants and minorities for the ills of a state long ravaged by deindustrialisation and depopulation.
In the aftermath of the attack, reports of racist attacks soared as migrants and people of colour told of being spat on, threatened and, in some cases, physically attacked. They go out with fear, rather than feeling safe.” A recent survey suggested that as many as 80% of people with a migration background in Saxony-Anhalt are considering leaving, said Ketevan Asatiani-Hermann, who leads the board of the Advisory Council for Integration and Migration in Magdeburg. As questions swirl over what the AfD could realistically do if the party garners enough votes to govern alone, a chorus of voices has begun to warn of the fallout.
Saxony-Anhalt is a rapidly depopulating state where the average age of 48.2 ranks as the highest in Germany. In May, the state medical association said that more than one in four doctors working in Saxony-Anhalt’s hospitals, or 27.1%, do not hold a German passport. If you were to take them out, the whole system would collapse,” said Hamid, 41, a paramedic originally from Iran.
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