Live Commentary
9:05am Tuesday The UK parliamentary by-election for Holborn and St Pancras will be held on October 8.
12:08pm Turnout for this election was an all-time high of 77.8% (up 17.5% since 2021).
11:19am (Three paragraph entry) With all votes counted, the AfD has won 43.8% of the vote (up 23.0% since 2021), the CDU 17.2% (down 19.9%), the SPD 9.3% (up 0.9%), the Greens 8.9% (up 3.0%), the Left 8.6% (down 2.4%), the BSW 5.3% (new) and the FDP 2.6% (down 3.8%).
Owing to the removal of the extra 14 seats from 2021, seat changes will sum to -14. The AfD won 39 of the 83 seats, three short of a majority (up 16), the CDU 15 (down 25), the SPD eight (down one), the Greens eight (up two), the Left eight (down four), the BSW five (new) and the FDP zero (down seven). To keep the AfD from government will require an alliance of all five non-AfD parliamentary parties.
The AfD did slightly better than polls expected, with the CDU doing much worse. The Greens and BSW also overperformed, with the Left underperforming. The AfD had its highest vote share at a state election and a massive swing to it. In a little good news for the overall German left, the combined vote share for the SPD, Greens and Left was 26.8% (up 1.5%).
10:11am While overall seat numbers are proportional to vote share for parties that pass the 5% threshold, Saxony-Anhalt has 41 single-member seats elected by FPTP. In 2021, the CDU won 40 of these seats to one for the AfD. At this election, the AfD is winning 38 with three for the Left party. In 2021, 14 extra seats were added owing to the overhang caused by the CDU’s dominance of the single-member seats to maintain overall proportionality, but no extra seats will be needed this time, with the minimum 83 total seats elected.
9:42am With 99.6% counted, the BSW is up to 5.3%, ensuring they will win seats and deny the AfD a majority. The AfD has dropped back to 43.9%.
7:17am With 95.1% counted, the BSW remains at 5.2%, above the 5% threshold.
6:53am Monday (two paragraph entry) With 92.3% counted, the AfD has won 45.4% of the votes, but not a majority of seats as six parties cleared the 5% threshold. Current vote shares are 45.4% AfD, 16.5% CDU, 8.9% SPD, 8.8% Greens, 8.3% Left and 5.2% BSW, with the FDP well below the 5% threshold on 2.5%.
Current seats are 39 of 83 for the AfD, below the 42 needed for a majority, 16 CDU, eight SPD, eight Greens, eight Left and four BSW. We’ll need to wait for final results to confirm whether the BSW clears the 5% threshold (they’re at 5.2% currently).
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here.
Polls close at 2am AEST Monday for today’s German Saxony-Anhalt state election. I will report results after I wake up, which should be before 7am.
This election will be held using statewide proportional representation with a 5% threshold to elect at least 83 MPs. Polls have the populist right AfD surging into the low 40s, far ahead of the conservative governing CDU who are in the low 20s. The Left party is in the low double digits and the centre-left SPD in the high single digits.
Three other parties are at or just below the 5% threshold: the Greens, pro-business FDP and economically left but socially right BSW. The Greens are at 5-6%, BSW at 3-4% and FDP at 3%, so the Greens are more likely than not to clear the threshold. If only the AfD, CDU, Left and SPD clear the threshold, the AfD would have a reasonable chance to win its first ever parliamentary majority in a state election.
At the 2021 Saxony-Anhalt election, the CDU won 40 of the 97 seats on 37.1% of the votes, the AfD 23 on 20.8%, the Left 12 on 11.0%, the SPD nine on 8.4%, the FDP seven on 6.4% and the Greens six on 5.9%. Polls conducted before that election had given the CDU 1-7 point leads over the AfD, much lower than the CDU’s actual 16.3-point margin.
The poll error in 2021 may raise expectations that the AfD will once again underperform their polls. However, it should not be assumed that poll errors will behave the same way from one election to the next. For example, polls at the 2025 Australian federal election understated Labor after overstating them in 2022 and 2019.
In German federal polls, the AfD has taken the lead from the CDU/CSU. At the February 2025 federal election, the CDU/CSU won 28.5% of the vote, the AfD 20.8%, the SPD 16.4%, the Greens 11.6% and the Left 8.8%. A coalition of the CDU/CSU and SPD was formed after that election.
Current polls have the AfD rising into the high 20s and the CDU/CSU dropping to the low 20s. There’s been little improvement in the vote share for the combined left (SPD, Greens and Left), with these parties at 40% or below in recent polls (36.8% at the last election).
There are two German state elections on September 20: Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In Berlin, polls have the combined left-wing parties just below 50%, so the left should win that election. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the AfD has surged ahead of the SPD after the SPD won the 2021 election by 39.6-16.7 over the AfD. The AfD will probably win the most seats, but be short of a majority.
Swedish election next Sunday
Sweden uses national PR with a 4% threshold to elect its 349 MPs. At the 2022 Swedish election, the conservative Moderates formed a government that was supported by the populist right Sweden Democrats. Polls for next Sunday’s election have the Red-Green bloc of four parties leading the right-wing bloc of four parties by low to high single digit margins. One of the right-wing parties, the Liberals, is consistently polling below the 4% threshold. If they miss the threshold, it will assist the left.
UK by-election for Starmer’s former seat coming soon
Former UK Labour PM Keir Starmer resigned as Member for Holborn and St Pancras last week. A date for the by-election has not yet been set, but it will probably occur in the next month. At the July 2024 UK general election, Starmer won 48.9% in this seat, a left-wing independent 18.9%, the Greens 10.4%, the Conservatives 7.2%, the populist right Reform 6.1% and the Liberal Democrats 5.8%. Greens leader Zack Polanski will contest.
If the AfD wins a majority government in Saxony-Anhalt, that might break their barrier to getting at least 30% of the Federal vote.
And from there it’ll probably rhyme with the 1930’s in Germany, once government becomes impossible to form without them.
I think if it comes alongside Trump having less disapproval in the Western World (maybe except Canada and US itself), the support of far-right parties in Australia (One Nation) and Europe would likely further increase.
Marh says:
Sunday, September 6, 2026 at 7:03 pm
??? Are you saying that Germans will vote for AfD because they have heard of One Nation?
“ Germany’s ruling conservative party is drawing up plans to overhaul the country’s liberal citizenship laws to fight back against the Alternative for Germany (AfD).”
…
“Naturalisation should only be the last step at the end of an integration process into our workforce, society and constitutional order,” he said. “We cannot accept that people live in a parallel society and want to be German citizens at the same time.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/09/06/friedrich-merz-germany-immigration-afd/
That said, both the CDU and SPD have been rather shit, much like they were in the Weimar years, so it’s little surprise that it appears to be coming back to this.
Both German and Swedish elections will be fascinating. Thanks for the coverage. Looking forward to checking the results in the morning.
Going to bed now with one word in mind –
“Hoffnung” (Hope)
Huge turnout – 54.4% (!) by 2pm, about double the usual final total, with postal votes not included and four hours to go. Zero agreement as to what this might portend.
Uh-oh. Well, back to the 30s….
Not looking good, hopefully the AfD don’t get a majority and can’t form government
Looking like both the Greens (comfortably) and BSW (just) will get above 5% although that could be a bad thing with BSW potentially willing to work with the AfD
I read earlier today that said that BSW is willing to work with AFD on certain issues but that’s it – no joining the government or even a confidence and supply agreement.
The latest partial count I’ve seen is that BSW is still below the 5% threshold though that can change once all the results are in
Final result will be complicated due to the over and underhangs of the proportional system and the results of the constituency section.
AFD 46.8% so far
Source:
https://wahlergebnisse.sachsen-anhalt.de/wahlen/lt26/erg_kreise.html
The AfD is Leader was saying that he will talk to individuals as well, hopefully no one caves
Fingers crossed BSW falls back below the 5% threshold as the counting continues, no one should be working with AfD
I am surprised with turnout around 78% (compared to 61% in 2021) that AfD seems to have got around 45%. If BSW don’t remain above 5% it would seem to me that AfD would get a majority, but if BSW do remain above 5% I expect they will end up cooperating with AfD much more than they have previously said they would.
So the German people may soon find out just what AfD really will do once they are in power. With a few other state elections across other parts of the old ‘East Germany’ in the pipeline this result will surely give an initial polling boost to AfD in those states.
Interesting to see some running the line you see on here re Victoria and One Nation i.e. it will give people a taste of what they’re like
Not ideal
See where it lands
With BSW holding above the 5% threshold my rough calculation gives AfD 40 out of 83 seats.
If BSW fell below 5% I think AfD just squeak into majority with 42 seats versus 41 for all other parties.
Either way it surely means that the local AfD leader Ulrich Siegmund will become the new Minister-President of Saxony-Anhalt.
Obviously this is a simplistic version not taking into account actual seat wins that could change these numbers around the edges.
Seeing far right parties get elected and fail at the state level when they are shown to have nothing to offer beyond their whiney and divisive rhetoric is preferable to them winning national government. Unfortunately (as a Victorian) Victoria looks like being the state where this will play out in Australia. Even the Murdoch-Stokes-Nine media are not going to be able to polish the dysfunctional far right LNP-ON turd we’re likely about to inflict on ourselves. I cannot believe labor does not hammer the message that ‘You can’t govern and unite a nation/state by working to divide it’, ‘Now is a time for unity, not division and hate’, ‘The job of the PM/Premier is to unite, not divide, the nation/state.’ And then point to trump. This would give labor a platform to say ‘there they go again – trying to divide us at a time we need to unite’ every time the right put forward their xenophobic monoculture BS. (& Provoking trump support for the opposition would likely play well electorally).
It will be interesting to compare how Murdochs media report the Saxony result compared to the elections where left of centre parties are expected to win more convincingly. I’m guessing front page and lots of discussion/opinion/interviewing eachother re: Saxony and crickets/ no coverage of the latter. A royal commission into media bias and political interference (& donations) is long overdue.
@Sustainable Future
Trouble is the US Democrats (in particular their leadership in Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries) do that all the time and yet they’re just as unpopular as the Republicans, if not moreso.
@ Rocket
Yes the final allocation will depend on the results of the constituency section of the election and then the proportional vote % comes in and the allocation of the additional seats.
Then there is a complication with over and under hang seats to make the result proportional so although at the moment 83 members are due to be elected that can vary. After the 2021 election the final results meant there were 97 members.
Israel election news – Tomorrow is the deadline for candidates to file with the election on 27th of October. There may be some last minute combining of groups with more than a dozen major parties/coalitions.
ChrisC
I hadn’t noticed there were so many ‘overhang’ seats last time. CDU won 40/41 constituencies in 2021 with 34% of the vote (which would entitle them to 28/83 total) so that was the main reason I think. With AfD this time getting around 44% (47% of the 93% vote which will count) that would entitle them to around 39/83 seats and they seem to have won 38 out of the 41 constituency seats, so there is unlikely to be such a big ‘overhang’ this time, if any.
Sustainable Future says:
Monday, September 7, 2026 at 8:29 am
“far right LNP”
You want unity – but not with them. #HeadDesk
Take your hand off it.
FUBAR
“You want unity – but not with them”
The Vic LNP is not united in any way – they are a dysfunctional rabble of religious nutters (Pentecostals and opus dei lain mass loons), ‘ex’-neo nazis/white nationalists (just a phase I was going through at uni), corrupt bastards (Matthew Guy), warring dickheads (Kennet and Kroger are still at it), and IPA shills (Jess Wilson) who hate each others guts. Forced into coalition with One Nation they will make the last Baillieu (Fail-you) government look competent and united. Labor may need a kick up the arse, but the alternative will damage a state that, despite the RWNJ media campaigns, has done very well and is doing very well under them. Let’s see how state debt, gang crime and potholes stop being reported if/when the LNP-ON shit show get elected – or until the far right factions want to destabilise & depose Wilson. The buyers regret on her government will be well underway by early to mid 2027 so I’m expecting they’ll knife her within the first 2 years.
I hope the Canadian Navy has good pressure washers – they may have to hose off the swastikas from their shiny new german built u-boats in an election or two.
Germany is a salutary warning to the rest of the Western World of what happens when you destroy your industries through massively expensive green energy and the impact of unfettered immigration from cultures openly hostile to your own.
Trouble is “Sustainable Future” the present corrupt, incompetent, dishonest ALP rabble is not sustainable. I think Victorians are done with being the gravy train for the CFMEU, environmental grifters and plaque engravers. The current Vic govt has the financial acumen of a crack head with a payday loan. The premier is an unlikeable, incompetent imbecile. It is the LNP for govt after November 28 2026. You either agree or are a paid moron. There is no third option.
SNIP
Agreed with Sustainable Future.
Guess what happens if you vote LNP-One Nation in Victoria? We’re going to be another $10 billion in debt when they cancel the SRL. Also you won’t get the SRL at all.
What a wonderful investment for the future. Hope it’ll be worth it for listening to Hughesy on 3AW when you’re stuck in traffic for 2 hours on your way to work saying it’s all worth it for his 10 investment properties, which he could probably travel between with Bronnie’s helicopter paid for by the Liberal Party.
Can we keep this thread on-topic please.
@William
Okay, sorry about that.
Next up in Germany are the Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state elections in 2 weeks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Berlin_state_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Mecklenburg-Vorpommern_state_election
Berlin can probably keep the AfD out. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern meanwhile might very well be able to hold its SPD-Left Coalition government, although they’d probably need the Greens to settle the matter.
With no family currently living in Germany facing the prospect of AfD damage, we can now turn to Sweden where we do have family. And there I think the Tidö Coalition featuring the interestingly-named ‘Sweden Democrats’ are almost certainly going to be voted out after just one term. I actually think the Red-Green coalition are headed for a big win with 190 or more seats out of 349.
I’m not sure most Swedes are convinced that the Sweden Democrats after Russia’s 2022 Ukraine invasion truly had a ‘road to Damascus’ conversion from their previous support for Putin and Russia. And the Scandinavian countries, like the Baltic states, do sense a real threat from a desperate Putin-led Russia.
Weird how Sustainable Future’s 11.05am post doesn’t get moderated (i.e. removed), if that passes than anything surely goes. . .
In regards to Saxony-Anhalt, looks like it’s probably going to be an AfD Minority government unfortunately. Even if the CDU-SPD-Green-Left hold up their stonewall, there’s still BSW there to be like “Don’t be mean to Putin, but don’t bring back all that Nurembergy scheisse” and AfD will giggle and agree and such until they don’t have to anymore.
I have deleted Sustainable Future’s comment because, deep within the dense thicket of verbiage, a defamatory assertion was made about one particular MP. It should not surprise you under the circumstances that I might have failed to notice this. There was no other good reason why the comment should have been deleted, unless you get the vapours over the word “dickhead”.
Re AfD, the Saxony-Anhalt bunch seem a bit more competent than some others who have got into/close to leadership who are more rabble-rousing and not much else, from the little I have followed them.
(Lazy prejudice would simply tar all AfD-ers with the same brush – it’s so convenient when it becomes acceptable to call your political opponents dangerous neo-nazis across the board! 😉
But it’s not the case.)
Those with brains – which appear to include Ulrich Siegmund – will govern in a way that doesn’t ‘scare the horses’ so that they can be re-elected again later (whether successful or not, depends on lots of things of course).
Radicals (with brains, this is) will always moderate somewhat when in power and faced with the realities of governing.
That doesn’t mean that they won’t introduce laws unpalatable to some; and I for one dread that they – along with the BSW who on this think similarly or in fact worse – will in fact promote Russian links (albeit that sanctions on Russia may limit this somewhat, depending how far they are willing to test the limits of the sanctions enforcement bodies).
But the usual comments about ‘back to the 1930s’ etc. are yawn-inducing, predictable hyperbole that are very wide of the mark. And I say that as one who believes that AfD leadership will at some point need to take a firmer line (whether subtly or unsubtly) with any actual neo-nazi elements in their support or membership (especially), once they no longer need to rely on their votes to win elections.
WB 4.19pm
Thanks. Obviously I can’t look back at the post now to sensibly agree or disagree with what you say – I only read it once quickly.
But from memory about 1/2 the post was off the partisan scale in very extreme terms. In that sense using the word ‘dickhead’ is neither here nor there although that sentence was probably part of it.
That’s what I meant, I wasn’t even thinking about any ‘defamatory’ angle – just general discourse for which these threads are intended.
I get that’s always subjective to a degree and that you and I are unlikely to agree where that threshold is on specific posts, and that it is your site not mine. . .
Yeah, yeah, “Godwin’s Law”, whenever you bring up that you always lose the argument.
There comes a point where you need to be like “Hey, wait a second…” before they actually do intend to do the Time Warp again.
“It’s just a jump to the right… and even more to the right… then you suspend the laws, you bring your knees in tight, but it’s the pelvic thrust, that drives them all insane, let’s do the island of Epstein~”
No one who is familiar with where the boundaries are on this forum would have had the slightest expectation that that comment would have been cut for being too “partisan”. If those boundaries are disagreeable to you, don’t come here.
All the Stooges would be banned if that was the rule lol
Tbf I probably would be as well
Looking forward to Sweden after this morning’s ordinary result
Can the anti-Afd parties keep Afd out of power?
It is possible but it is undemocratic in my opinion.
For example, BJP was the untouchable party till 1997. BJP coalition was/ will not be able to form government even if they have a single seat less than bare majority in parliament or assembly.
In 1999, one of the regional parties from Tamilnadu, which was in BJP coalition at federal level, withdrew support to BJP led federal government. The majority in parliament is 272. But BJP led coalition numbers fell to 271 because of withdrawal of support of that regional party. BJP could not get that extra seat from any of the opposition parties. The government fell. New elections were called. The BJ led coalition won more seats (but just short of majority) than last time and was able to form government after cobbling up majority with some opposition parties.
BSW has real balance of power (unlike imaginary balance of power Australian Greens supporters and commentators propogate)
Hey fubar, just because AfD put that rubbish in their manifesto about “only 0.8C of warming and no recorded warming this century” doesn’t mean you need to try to sell it here.
A better explanation for high energy prices might be “gas and coal are expensive and set the marginal rate until the duck curve can be suppressed with renewables and batteries, and gas is doubly expensive because Russia is still attacking Ukraine,” but that’s probably a bit too complicated for people that voted in a party of holocaust denial in the country that nodded their heads while their leaders dismantled the democratic state and then killed 50 million people through the war they started. And in living memory of people that fought stamping those pricks out.
We have science and history in school so people don’t repeat this crap. Supposedly.
@ Ven
Can the anti-Afd parties keep Afd out of power?
It is possible but it is undemocratic in my opinion.
Yes they can.
Why is it undemocratic? If you want power then you need to win a majority.
They can try and run as a minority government (Like Carney did initially in Canada) but you’re relying on a fractured opposition joining together and voting things down on an issue by issue basis. But in that situation you’re moderating your positions to try and prevent that.
As much as I hate the AfD. It would absolutely be undemocratic for the stupid-complacent been in power too long CDU to try and cobble together a coalition of all other parties to stay in power. The voters rejected them.
While a majority did not support the AfD. Most voters of the smaller parties don’t particularly want the CDU to stay either, I reckon most Die Linke and BSW voters while they hate the AfD, would rather deal with them, than the CDU which is a joke and dictatorship of a party at this point. Staying in power for almost 30 years or more (Just look at Bavaria! 80 years) is not democracy. That is a 1-party state.
I don’t get why seniors keep voting CDU, something I will never understand nor respect. Especially after what Merkel did to Germany and Europe, thus why the UK hated the EU so much.
Let the AfD form minority, hold them to account, see how it goes, and strongly pushback on their hard-right policies if they put them forward.
test
@WB
“No one who is familiar with where the boundaries are on this forum would have had the slightest expectation that that comment would have been cut for being too “partisan”.”
Sadly, this is probably true! – though that’s not a compliment to you.
“If those boundaries are disagreeable to you, don’t come here.”
Well, I don’t very often – and it’s why I rarely stray onto the ‘open threads’ – though it’s disappointing to see this level of discourse on an international thread which, along with the regional threads, can normally be expected to contain psephology and decency in greater quantities than the awful main threads.
Though it’s odd to be dismissed so out of hand by the site owner, who incidentally has never – not even by automated message or anything – said thank you for one of the gifts voluntarily donated in the past. I’m sure my very occasional £20/AUD40 is never going to make me an important donor, but the aforementioned is a big disincentive to give more often.
It’s WB’s site, as you have said yourself. You can have an opinion on what comments should or shouldn’t be censored but he doesn’t need to heed it. And that applies whether you donate or not.
… so, anyway, about that election.
I don’t see any way they get to avoid an AfD government in Saxony-Anhalt. It’d be a mess and the AfD would lose votes whenever the other five parties all vote against them, but that isn’t the same as those five parties all working together in government. Three-party coalitions are weird enough.
Berlin looks like being some flavour of Left-Green-SPD coalition. Ideologically coherent, and they’ve done it before (2016-23, led by SPD) so it shouldn’t be too dramatic. Five parties all between 10-20% is pretty wild.
As for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: as much as the CDU don’t want to work with the Left, they could at least stand by and tolerate a minority SPD/Left government (which would have more seats than AfD if their polling’s on the money, and just continues the current arrangement). Something similar happens in reverse in Thuringia, where the Left supports a CDU/BSW/SPD government.
Meanwhile in Thuringia and Brandenburg, BSW seems to have completely fallen to pieces- they’re looking even less stable than One Nation. Thuringia still has the coalition they negotiated after the 2024 election, just with ex-BSW members; in Brandenburg, two of the ex-BSW members joined the SPD, so that’s mutated into a SPD-CDU coalition. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the 5 they’ve just elected in Saxony-Anhalt – AfD need 3 more for a majority, so if BSW splits over the issue of working with them that could get them there.
I saw today a few late polls giving the Red-Green coalition in Sweden only a narrow 0.3% lead over the ruling Tidö Coalition. This could mean a 175-174 result in Parliament.
I still believe the gap will be bigger than this and I am hoping for a result more like 190-159. The Tidö Coalition won the September 2022 election narrowly 176-173 but they fell behind in the polls two months later and have trailed in every poll since then over almost four years.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has said if he is re-elected he will bring the Sweden Democrats more formally into government with ministerial positions. I am hoping that the promise (or threat) of that is enough to swing the election against him and his Coalition.
Bird of Paradox
Yes – I can’t see any alternative to an AfD government in Saxony-Anhalt. I feel that a few BSW or CDU members will support them if not outright defect.
It will be pretty crazy to see AfD come second in Berlin, but it won’t change things much.
In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern it seems AfD will more than double their vote and beat SPD though not gain government.
The prospect of all the old East German states eventually electing AfD governments would I think cause some people in West Germany to reflect that maybe they shouldn’t have reunified after all. At least then the East couldn’t blame the West for all their problems.