AfD leaders are in particular zeroing in on the small eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, seeing in that largely rural part of the country their clearest path to real power, with polls showing the party at nearly 40 percent support there. It was in this state that veteran conservative premier Reiner Haseloff stepped down on Tuesday, handing the reins to party colleague Sven Schulze, the conservatives’ lead candidate in the state ahead of an election there set for Sept. 6.
Schulze is set to be elected as the new premier by the state’s parliament on Wednesday. The move is intended to boost Schulze’s profile ahead of the vote and amounts to a do-or-die tactical push on the part of the conservatives to curb the AfD’s rapid rise. If the AfD wins an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in Saxony-Anhalt in September — a result that is within reach for the party — it would mark the first time since the rise of the Nazis that a far-right party has amassed that kind of governing power in Germany.
Conservative leaders are depicting the political stakes as momentous.
“Either Sven Schulze becomes premier, or we’ll have a different country,” Haseloff said after announcing his decision to step down.
It’s unclear whether Schulze’s stint as premier ahead of the September election will provide a boost to the CDU, now polling second with about 26 percent support in the state. The politician, 46, formerly worked in sales for a mechanical engineering company, and depicts himself as a practical politician with the kind of tangible business experience needed to boost the local economy.
“The next few months should not just be about election campaigns,” Schulze recently told Germany’s Bild tabloid, a sister publication of POLITICO in the Axel Springer Group. “This government — led by me as state premier — must also deliver results.”