Magdeburg, AfD forms parliamentary group: four parties refuse talks, BSW accepts

On September 10, 2026 in Magdeburg, the constituent session of the AfD group in the new Saxony-Anhalt Landtag was held: the group leader is Ulrich Siegmund. On the same day came the response of the other parties to the AfD’s invitation to open talks: CDU, SPD, Greens and Linke refused, while the BSW accepted following a unanimous resolution by its own regional executive. We wrote about the outcome of the September 6 vote and the pressure that followed it on September 8, after the piece on the September 6 turnout.

The new development is therefore twofold: the formal constitution of the group and the first split among the parties over whether to talk, even before what to talk about. The three topics announced for the meeting between BSW and AfD are energy supply, education and what the two sides call “peace policy”. Based on the material currently available, this is not a coalition negotiation: it is a talk on specified matters, with no government negotiation shown to have begun.

On the arithmetic level, the BSW’s availability shifts something. The AfD holds 39 seats and remains three short of a majority; with the BSW’s 5 it would reach 44 out of 83, above the threshold of 42. That the numbers exist does not mean a majority exists: neither party has announced a governing agreement, and the other four groups have already closed off even the preliminary stage of dialogue. The BSW’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, Thomas Schulze, called it a bad way of proceeding in politics for other parties to refuse engagement as such.

Siegmund added, on the same September 10, that his party is also in contact with lawmakers from other parties, without naming them. This is a unilateral statement: today’s material contains no confirmation of those contacts from the parties concerned, and it should therefore be recorded for what it is, a claim by the group leader not confirmed by other sources.

The institutional calendar sets only one firm deadline. The new Landtag’s first session must be held within thirty days of the vote, that is by October 6, 2026. No deadline, however, binds the election of the minister-president: regional law imposes no time limit within which the new majority must form, and in the meantime the outgoing government remains in office. This is the distinction that matters for understanding the coming months: the October deadline concerns the assembly’s inauguration, not the birth of an executive.

Two questions that today’s material does not resolve remain open. The first is whether the BSW-AfD talks will produce anything in writing or remain a thematic meeting. The second is what governing arrangement might emerge from the groups that said no to talks, given that the seat arithmetic does not allow for obvious combinations. The next verifiable milestone is the Landtag’s constituent session, to be convened by October 6.

Sources: Stuttgarter Zeitung (dpa); news.de (dpa); Legal Tribune Online (editorial, Saxony-Anhalt Constitution); Epoch Times Deutschland (AFP).