Can Germany's political firewall survive the AfD's record-breaking momentum?

A small state in central-eastern Germany, Saxony-Anhalt, held a state-level election that shook Germany to its core.

The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won 43.8 percent of the vote, more than double the vote share of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)..

This brief argues that if the AfD's national trajectory holds through 2029, refusing cooperation may no longer be politically or numerically sustainable, especially for the CDU: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/fraying-firewall-what-the-afd-s-saxony-anhalt-win-means-for-germany-and-europe