With less than a month to go until the highly consequential election in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the co-leader of The Left party on Sunday signalled he would do anything to prevent the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) from taking power.
“We, The Left, have shown in recent years that we take responsibility for this country,” Luigi Pantisano told public broadcaster ZDF.
Among the measures he would consider is offering support to the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), the party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, which Pantisano recently accused of implementing “fascist politics.”
The comments came ahead of the election in Saxony-Anhalt on September 6, where for the first time in Germany’s post-war history, a far-right party stands on the verge of leading a state government.
The AfD has never participated in a ruling coalition in Germany’s 16 states or its federal government, as all other mainstream parties refuse to work with it, a policy infamously known as the “firewall.”
But with the party polling at over 40% in Saxony-Anhalt, it stands a serious chance of securing an unprecedented absolute majority of seats in the state parliament in Magdeburg, depending on whether several minor parties fail to achieve the 5% threshold needed to win seats.
Should the AfD fall short, surveys suggest the incumbent CDU premier of the state, Sven Schulze, will only be able to form a government with the support of The Left, a successor to the Socialist Unity Party that ruled the former East Germany that is polling third in Saxony-Anhalt.
However, the conservative CDU has formally ruled out collaborating with either the AfD or The Left. Pantisano said the key question is whether Schulze would be prepared to take responsibility after the election.