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PaperclipPerfector  16hr ago (text post)   1113 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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A Reuters article indicates otherwise.

The AfD surged into first place in Sunday's state election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt but fell just short of an absolute majority, with 39 of 83 seats in the regional legislature.

While mainstream parties, including Chancellor Friedrich Merz's CDU conservatives, have long refused to work with the AfD, in a policy known as the "firewall", the far-left BSW reaffirmed its readiness to play kingmaker after it cleared the 5% threshold to enter Saxony-Anhalt's state parliament [with five seats, which is enough to form a majority with AfD].

"We've made no secret from the beginning that we'll talk with all parties. The AfD is part of that," Thomas Schulze, the BSW party's lead candidate in the Saxony-Anhalt state election, told Reuters on Monday.

Schulze said the mainstream parties' refusal to work with the AfD was "undemocratic". Germany's domestic intelligence agency has branded the AfD as "extremist".

As well as their hostility to Germany's political establishment and their social conservatism, the two parties share a number of priorities, including a hostility to mass migration—which the BSW says harms local workers' rights—suspicion of the mainstream media and a desire to end financial and military support for Ukraine and restore ties with Russia.

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