During a recent appearance with the news channel “Welt” Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s top candidate for Saxony-Anhalt, expressed highly optimistic views regarding the party’s electoral prospects, suggesting that recent poll results indicate the AfD is on the verge of achieving an overwhelming majority. While cautioning against premature celebration, Siegmund declared the atmosphere “very optimistic” and asserted that the party is poised to “write history” in the region.
Siegmund argued that the AfD’s potential success does not rely merely on the disappointment felt by voters regarding the Union and SPD. He dismissed the strategies of opposing parties, suggesting that rather than benefiting from their failures, the AfD’s strength lies in its own robust policy platform. He characterized the electorate’s dissatisfaction as stemming from the feeling that current leaders are “passing by the real problems of this country”. According to Siegmund, other parties are preoccupied with determining how to prevent the AfD from winning, rather than proposing concrete ways to improve the country overall.
The former Minister-President of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff (CDU), had warned of a potential devaluation of the state’s “Abitur” (university entrance exam) should the AfD secure a victory. Siegmund strongly rejected this warning, labeling it an act of “absolute panic”. He dismissed the concern as fundamentally nonsensical and politically motivated, stating that the opposition seems incapable of formulating substantive policy. Instead, they resort to alarming hypotheticals. Siegmund further argued that the educational sector itself is crucial; in fact, he suggested that the “Abitur” might eventually gain even greater prestige in Saxony-Anhalt because the region would then need to invest in appropriate educational proposals, noting that education has always been “the most important resource”.
