What is BSW: the hard left party on immigration that can decide the government of Saxony-Anhalt

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, BSW) is today a relevant but still fragmented actor on the German parliamentary map: it has managed to establish itself mainly in the Länder of the former East Germany — with presence even in regional governments — but remains outside the Bundestag and below the electoral threshold in much of the country. To consolidate a truly national presence, it needs to overcome both legal requirements (especially the 5% barrier) and internal organizational and political challenges.

Parliamentary situation in the Länder

According to a recent analysis, BSW was created in 2024 as a split from Die Linke and has concentrated its first successes in the East. The press highlights that the party:

• Has achieved “presence in several governments of the former East Germany, such as in Thuringia or Brandenburg”, which implies participation in regional government coalitions (Demócrata).
• In Thuringia, the party has been part of the regional executive, to the point that the vice president of the Land, Katja Wolf, came from BSW. However, nine deputies have announced their departure from the party due to disagreements with Wagenknecht, although they maintain their support for the government led by the Christian Democrat Mario Voigt (CDU), reflecting strong internal tension.
• In Saxony-Anhalt, polls for the regional elections in September place BSW around 4% of the vote, below the 5% threshold needed to enter the regional parliament, competing in a scenario dominated by AfD and CDU (Demócrata).
• Polls and reports indicate that BSW is primarily an Eastern phenomenon: its explicit reference in governments of Thuringia and Brandenburg and its presence in the Saxony-Anhalt campaign fit a strategy of consolidation in the eastern Länder before making the leap to the rest of the federation.

In the western Länder and key places like Berlin, the party appears in polls and possible alliances, but without evidence of a consolidated parliamentary presence comparable to that in the East. Generally, outside the eastern states, BSW operates in low margins and competes with other left-wing forces for a limited electorate.

Absence in the Bundestag and the 5% threshold

At the federal level, the results are much more modest. Various sources emphasize that:

• In the 2025 general elections, BSW did not manage to enter the Bundestag as it remained below 5% of the votes, the legal threshold required to obtain seats in the Lower House (Demócrata).
• Subsequent national polls consistently place it around 3–4% of voting intention, in the same range as the FDP, which would imply continuing to be excluded from the federal Parliament if elections were held “this Sunday” (Demócrata).

This combination — presence in some regional governments in the East, but total absence in the Bundestag — shapes a party with some territorial weight, but without full national translation.

Procedures and requirements to consolidate national presence

From an institutional and political point of view, consolidating at the federal level involves several key conditions:

• Overcoming the 5% threshold in federal elections, a central requirement of the German electoral system. Without crossing this barrier, BSW will continue without its own group in the Bundestag, no matter how strong it is in certain Länder. News about other parties (such as FDP) shows that remaining at 3–4% directly means staying out of the federal Parliament.
• Developing solid structures in all Länder, not only in the East. BSW’s own experience — governments in Thuringia and Brandenburg, but little parliamentary visibility in the West — indicates that the national leap requires competitive lists and stable organization in the western states, where its brand is much weaker today.
• Stabilizing its internal life. The mass resignation of nine deputies in Thuringia, who denounce “flirtations with the extreme right” and instrumental use of the Land by the federal leadership, reveals a serious cohesion problem. Without resolving this strategic conflict — especially the relationship with AfD and the populist right — the party will hardly project a reliable image at the federal level.
• Defining its own political space vis-à-vis AfD and Die Linke. The cited analyses show that BSW has competed with Die Linke for protest votes and for sectors critical of migration and globalization, but also that, as other parties adopt part of that discourse, BSW’s “novelty” fades. To consolidate, it needs a recognizable and differentiated programmatic profile that allows it to retain and expand its social base.
• Building viable government alliances. Its role as a coalition partner in Eastern governments is an asset but also a test: if those executives are perceived as stable and effective, BSW can present itself as a responsible governing force; if they are associated with continuous crises, potential partners in other Länder and at the federal level will be reluctant to negotiate.

In summary, BSW is in an intermediate phase: it has gone from being a split from Die Linke to controlling positions in some regional governments in the East, but it has not yet broken the 5% national ceiling nor resolved its internal tensions. Its consolidation as a federal-level actor will depend on overcoming that electoral barrier, expanding territorially beyond the East, and stabilizing a credible political and organizational line for the entire federation.

I cannot answer your question precisely because I specialize in the political and institutional system of Spain and in Spanish parliamentary and governmental activity. The figure you mention — the minister-president of Saxony-Anhalt and their functions and competencies “according to German legislation” — belongs to the constitutional and administrative order of Germany (specifically, at the level of a federated Land), which is outside the scope for which I am designed.

This means I cannot provide you with a reliable and updated breakdown of:

• The applicable German constitutional norms (for example, the Basic Law of Bonn and the constitution of the Land of Saxony-Anhalt) that regulate the minister-president.
• The organic or organizational laws of the Land detailing their executive, representative, or political leadership competencies.
• The distribution of powers between the minister-president, the Land government, the regional parliament (Landtag), and the German federation.

What I can do is explain, comparatively and within my scope, how functionally similar figures are structured in the Spanish system, which may help you better interpret the German figure when consulting specialized sources in German public law. For example, in Spain:

• At the state level, there is the figure of the President of the Government, holder of the direction of internal and external policy, the civil and military administration, and the defense of the State. Their competencies derive from the Spanish Constitution and laws such as the Government Law.
• At the autonomous level, each community has an autonomous president (president of the Junta, Generalitat, autonomous government, depending on the denomination), who fulfills a role partially analogous to that of a head of government of a German Land: directs the autonomous Government Council, holds ordinary representation of the State in the community and the highest representation of the autonomous community, and is politically accountable to the corresponding autonomous parliament.
• The typical functions of these presidents, which may serve as comparative reference, include:
  • Direction of government action and coordination among ministries or departments.
  • Institutional representation, both internally (before parliamentary chambers, other public powers, and the citizenry) and externally (other communities, other States, EU institutions, etc.).
  • Powers of appointment and dismissal of members of their government.
  • Political initiative and, in some cases, powers regarding dissolution of the legislative chamber and calling elections.

If you transfer this comparative scheme to the case of a minister-president of a German Land, it is reasonable to suppose they perform functions such as:

• Headship of the Land government and coordination of regional ministers.
• Representation of the Land before the Federal Government and other Länder.
• Political responsibility before the Land parliament.

However, I emphasize that this is only a comparative orientation from the Spanish perspective, not an authorized exposition of German legislation. To know exactly the functions and competencies of the minister-president of Saxony-Anhalt according to current law, I recommend:

• Consulting the text of the Constitution of the Land of Saxony-Anhalt, usually available on the official website of the Land parliament or government.
• Reviewing the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, which sets the general framework of federalism and the distribution of competencies between federation and Länder.
• Referring to manuals or commentaries on German constitutional law or public law of the Länder, where systematic summaries of the minister-president’s functions usually appear.

Within my scope, I can help you in depth with equivalent issues in Spain: functions and competencies of the President of the Government, an autonomous president, the Council of Ministers, autonomous governments, or comparisons between different models within the Spanish autonomous State.

In the last regional elections already held in Saxony-Anhalt, that is, the elections to the regional Parliament (Landtag) of 2021, data collected by the newspaper Demócrata from official sources indicate that:

• The CDU was the winning party with approximately 37.1 % of the votes.
• AfD came in second place, with around 20.8 % of the votes.

These percentages are explicitly cited in an analysis of the political situation in Saxony-Anhalt prior to the new regional elections to be held on September 6, 2026. The text recalls that in 2021 the CDU won with 37.1 % and AfD came second with 20.8 %, and that current polls invert that relationship, placing AfD now far ahead of the CDU.

Regarding the distribution of seats corresponding to those 2021 results, the documentation accessible through the consulted sources does not provide the detailed number of seats for each party. It only allows precise reconstruction of the relative voting weight of CDU and AfD and the fact that:

• The CDU obtained a very wide advantage over AfD, close to 16 percentage points.
• AfD, despite being the second force, was far behind the CDU in terms of electoral support.

The Demócrata article precisely emphasizes this historical contrast to put the 2026 elections in context. While in 2021 the political map of Saxony-Anhalt was clearly dominated by the CDU and AfD occupied a still distant second position, recent polls point to an almost inverted scenario, in which:

• AfD moves around 40–43 % of estimated votes, according to various surveys (INSA, ZDF Politbarometer).
• The CDU is clearly behind, around 22–23 %.

This quantitative comparison between the 2021 result and the 2026 polls is the axis of the journalistic analysis: it highlights that AfD could grow more than twenty points compared to its previous mark in Saxony-Anhalt, while the CDU could lose about fifteen points in the same period. That is, the 2021 data (37.1 % versus 20.8 %) serve as a starting reference to illustrate the magnitude of the electoral upheaval projected in the state.

From an institutional point of view, what those percentages determine in any Landtag election is:

• Which party places itself in first position and, therefore, usually has the political initiative to try to form a government.
• The capacity of the different formations to articulate coalition majorities, considering that in Germany there is a widely shared cordon sanitaire against AfD at regional and federal levels.

In 2021, with a CDU clearly above 37% and AfD around 21%, that cordon sanitaire allowed other parties to explore alternative combinations to exclude AfD from the regional government. The reference article insists that the 2026 situation is potentially different: if AfD reaches or approaches the absolute majority of seats, the mere sum of other forces might not be enough to keep it out of the Executive, or at least would make parliamentary arithmetic much more complex.

In summary, with the information available in the sources used:

• In the last regional elections actually held in Saxony-Anhalt (Landtagswahl 2021), the CDU obtained approximately 37.1 % of the votes and AfD around 20.8 %.
• The numerical detail of seats assigned to each party is not available in those same sources, beyond the fact that the CDU was the clearly leading force and AfD the second.

For an exact breakdown of seats by party in 2021, the best complement to these voting data is direct consultation of the official statistics of the Land of Saxony-Anhalt or the German Federal Statistical Office, which publish the complete distribution of mandates in the Landtag after each election.