MAGDEBURG, Germany, Sept 7 - The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) could end up forming its first state government with the help of a small leftist party that shares its hostility both to mass immigration and to the mainstream parties' efforts to exclude more radical parties from power.

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.

"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".

UPENDING GERMANY'S CONSENSUS

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.

"Hopefully, there are now majorities in the Magdeburg state parliament in favour of a change of course in energy policy, an end to sanctions against Russia, better education and a fundamental reform of public service broadcasting," party founder Sahra Wagenknecht said in a statement.

"The BSW intends to use these majorities to improve people's lives."

The BSW was founded in 2024 by Wagenknecht and nine others who had broken away from Die Linke (the Left), the main far-left party in G...