AfD’s Saxony-Anhalt triumph may yet end in a rerun

The AfD’s result in Saxony-Anhalt was meant to launch government talks. Instead, it has opened a second front: the legal one. With almost 44 percent of the vote, the party missed an absolute majority by only a sliver, and Ulrich Siegmund is now trying to assemble a government. Yet the more awkward question is whether part of the campaign that produced that result was paid for in a way the law does not allow.

The criticism centres on Bürgerdialoge, well-attended public meetings that were financed with faction funds and, according to the allegation, also used for electioneering. That distinction is not a footnote for lawyers to enjoy over coffee. Under paragraph two of Saxony-Anhalt’s Fraktionsgesetz, money allocated to a parliamentary faction may be used for public information about the work of MPs, but not for party purposes.

Sophie Schönberger, a law professor at the Free University of Berlin, told Spiegel that a large part of the AfD’s campaign had been financed with faction money. In her view, that was clearly unlawful and could ultimately make a successful challenge to the state election possible. The accusation did not appear out of nowhere. ARD Kontraste had already reported in April that the AfD was using this method, though the political consequences only became serious after the election result itself.

That leaves Saxony-Anhalt with a familiar but uncomfortable procedural route. Any eligible voter can file an objection, after which the Landtag’s election review committee would deal with it. A case could also be taken to the state constitutional court in Saxony-Anhalt. Such proceedings would not move quickly; a decision could take many months, or even years. By then, the party may already be governing — or explaining why it should not have been allowed to do so in the first place.

For now, the result stands. But the legal cloud is real, and it is hardly ideal for a party trying to turn a strong vote share into power. Public money and party politics have always made uneasy companions; when the line between parliamentary information and campaigning is treated as flexible, the bill tends to arrive later, and usually with a lawyer attached.

Written by Christiane Hofreiter christiane.hofreiter@alpineweekly.com