With voters in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt heading to the polls on Sunday, tensions are mounting within the governing Christian Democrats over their possible coalition options. Three days before the election, Friedrich Merz’s CDU was trailing well behind the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) at just over 20%. Polls put the AfD as high as 43%.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. That would make the AfD by far the strongest force in the state parliament. Yet the party currently appears unlikely to win an absolute majority, leaving open the question of whether it can translate an electoral breakthrough into executive power. Its lead candidate, Ullrich Siegmund, has ruled out entering a coalition and says he wants the AfD to govern alone. The CDU, led by incumbent Minister-President Sven Schulze, is facing a dilemma of its own. One of his current coalition partners, the liberal FDP, is unlikely to clear the threshold for returning to the state parliament. The projected numbers also appear to rule out a majority coalition with the SPD and Greens. Schulze could, nevertheless, seek to form a minority government with the support of the Left Party, which is expected to emerge as the third-strongest political force. Speaking to journalists last week, Schulze said neither AfD nor Left Party ministers would have a seat at his cabinet table. The wording was notable for what it did not exclude: a CDU-led minority government tolerated by the Left from outside the coalition.