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The latest poll for Saxony-Anhalt has the far-right at 41%. If some of the smaller parties (SPD, Greens, BSW) don't clear the threshold to enter parliament, the far-right may gain an absolute majority in September.

Even if the AfD doesn't win power outright, their success makes parts of eastern Germany extremely difficult to govern. Mainstream parties don't want to work with them (for understandable reasons), so they need to pull everyone else together to form governments without them

But this is ultimately a trap as well because it forces voters into a choice between the AfD and a big blob of all other parties. It's perfect for the far-right because almost everyone who votes for the blob will likely be disappointed even if it wins. At best, the blob can buy time

The AfD is now so strong that it presents all other parties with a choice between the plague and cholera: Either cooperate, thereby granting more legitimacy to them. Or: Blob together, erasing all visible differences between the parties in the minds of ordinary voters

If the other parties choose to blob together (which they will), they will paralyse each other for a few years and then we'll likely be back where we are now, just that the AfD will probably be even stronger. These coalitions are too broad to deliver what voters want, they're doomed to fail

Take migration, for example. Your average older CDU voter probably wants the state to deport more illegal immigrants. Your average younger Linke voter wants the opposite. Or take climate change, or take taxation or take basically any other issue: These blob coalitions cannot work

It's miserable

Normally a party on 40% would just find a coalition partner and govern.

Think about what Donald Trump has done with ICE deporting legal people, acting with impunity, the damage he has done to foreign politics with war and tariffs. You would want to avoid that at all costs.