Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party was on track to coming first in the state election in Thuringia on Sunday, an exit poll said, but it is unlikely to be able to form a government.
Known as AfD, Alternative for Germany could become the first far-right party to win a regional election in Germany since World War Two.
Alternative for Germany was on course for 33.5 per cent of the vote compared to 23.4 per cent in 2019, followed by the Conservatives on 24.5 per cent, up from 21.7 per cent. Upstart populist party, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, came in third place on 14.5 per cent.
With a year to go until Germany’s national election, the results look punishing for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition.
It is a painful result for the unpopular national government but the Social Democrats look to have cleared the 5 per cent threshold for staying in the parliaments of Thuringia and Saxony, which is also holding elections.
However, Scholz’s coalition partners, the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats looked less secure in both parliaments, in a development that could herald yet more conflict.
All parties including the BSW have pledged not to allow into coalition an AfD they regard as anti-democratic and extremist.
Alice Weidel, a national co-leader of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has described Sunday’s votes as “an important milestone for the national parliamentary election next year.”
The party secured its first mayoral and county government posts last year, and now says it wants to govern at state level, too.
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. Its leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, has been convicted of knowingly using a Nazi slogan at political events, but he is appealing the ruling.
It came as Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf told The Independent he is looking to the German elections as a sign of new nationalist parties gaining popularity.
He said: “We are a very different party from them but we live in an unprecedented time and we have five years not two to double our vote.”
