– The party is on course for over a third of the vote share
German far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) are on course to win a state election.
Projections for ARD and ZDF public television based on exit polls and partial counting showed Alternative for Germany winning 32 to 33 per cent of the vote in the eastern state of Thuringia — well ahead of Germany’s other governing parties.
It the predictions are correct, if would be the first time a far right party could be in power in Germany for the first time since the Second World War,
It also doing well in neighbouring state Saxony, where projections put support for the CDU, which has led the state since German reunification in 1990, at 31.5-31.8 per cent and AfD at 30.7 to 31.4per cent.
Despite its success in Thuringia, it is likely to be excluded from power by rival parties, so it has little chance of forming a government in the state.
Bjorn Höcke, who has already been convicted twice for using prohibited Nazi slogans, is the leader of AfD party in Thuringia. The eurosceptic, anti-migration party is topping opinion polls and is expected to gain around 30 per cent of the vote share.
The parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unpopular national government obtained extremely weak results.
Omid Nouripour, a leader of the Greens, one of the national governing parties, said he was concerned about the success of Afd, saying: “An openly right-wing extremist party has become the strongest force in a state parliament for the first time since 1949, and that causes many people very deep concern and fear.”
The new Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, took up to 16per cent of the vote in Thuringia and 12% in Saxony, adding another level of complication.
“This is a historic success for us,” Alice Weidel, a national co-leader of AfD, told ARD. She described the result as a “requiem” for Scholz’s coalition.
The CDU’s national general secretary, Carsten Linnemann, said that “voters in both states knew that we wouldn’t form a coalition with AfD, and it will stay that way — we are very, very clear on this.”
Weidel denounced that as “pure ignorance” and said that “voters want AfD to participate in a government.”
Deep discontent with a national government notorious for infighting, anti-immigration sentiment and scepticism toward German military aid for Ukraine are among the factors that have contributed to support for populist parties in the region, which is less prosperous than Western Germany.
AfD is at its strongest in the formerly communist east, and the domestic intelligence agency has the party’s branches in both Saxony and Thuringia under official surveillance as “proven right-wing extremist” groups.
Additional reporting by AP.
