ReutersGermany’s anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is celebrating a “historic success” and the far-right party is expecting a major victory in the eastern state of Thuringia.
According to public broadcaster ARD’s forecasts, the AfD is expected to win close to a third of the vote, putting it nine percentage points ahead of the conservative CDU and well ahead of Germany’s three main parties.
The election result means that a far-right party has won a seat in the state parliament for the first time since World War II, but it is unlikely to form a government in Thuringia.
The AfD came in a narrow second place in Sunday’s other major state election in the more populous neighboring state of Saxony.
According to forecasts there, the CDU is expected to win close to 32 percent of the vote, one point ahead of the AfD and well ahead of the three parties that lead the national government: the Social Democrats, the Greens and the liberal FDP.
Bjorn Höcke, the AfD’s top candidate in Thuringia, is a controversial figure in Germany, and has expressed great pride in his “historic victory.” He is said to still be able to win a seat because he is at the top of the party list, even though he does not have a direct mandate in the state parliament.
Mr. Höcke’s party has been labeled a right-wing extremist party and he He was fined for using a Nazi slogan. However, the former history teacher denied any intentional action.
Charlotte Knobloch, one of Germany’s most famous Holocaust survivors, noted that the elections took place exactly 85 years after the start of World War II. She said the result risked making the country “more unstable, colder, poorer, less safe, and less worth living in.”
With the federal election just over a year away, the AfD is in second place in national opinion polls. Co-chair Alice Weidel said the result was a “requiem” for the three parties that run Germany. And voters in the two eastern states clearly wanted her party in government. “Without us, there is no stable government at all.”
Bjorn Hocke echoed that message, saying there were many CDU voters who would be happy if the two parties worked together.
The AfD cannot govern in Thuringia without support from other parties, and the CDU has made it clear it will not consider governing with the far right.
Mathematically, conservatives need the support of left-wing parties to form a majority party.
Some 5 million eastern Germans were eligible to vote on Sunday, and a poll by public broadcaster ZDF found that 36 percent of Thuringia’s under-30s voted for the AfD, far more than any other party.
The biggest issue for AfD voters on Sunday was immigration, particularly refugees and asylum seekers.
“The politicians promised a lot, especially about immigration and foreigners,” Michael, an AfD voter, told the BBC in Erfurt, the capital of the Thuringian state.
“But nothing happened. Nothing. This party only gave promises. Now I have my party and I stand by my decision,” he said, standing next to his partner Manuela, who agreed that people wanted change.
The asylum issue has come back into the national spotlight less than a week before the vote, when three people were killed at a street festival in Solingen, western Germany, and a Syrian who faces deportation has been arrested on suspicion of carrying out the attack.
AfD deputy leader Beatrix von Storch told the BBC’s Newshour programme that political opponents have been attacking her party’s asylum policy as extremist for years. “Two days before the election, they started doing what we always said we should do,” she said, referring to a series of government measures to tighten asylum laws.
The AfD wants to stop arms supplies to Ukraine, as does the BSW, a new party led by left-populist leader Sarah Wagenknecht that is expected to come in third in both states.
Mrs Wagenknecht shares similar views with the AfD on Ukraine, but like other parties she has refused to join any coalition government with the far right.
If the predictions are confirmed, the AfD is expected to win 32 seats in the 88-seat Thuringia state parliament, while the CDU is expected to win 23, leaving just one of the three parties forming the national government represented.
That would give the AfD more than a third of the seats in parliament and give it a minority position on decisions that require a two-thirds majority, such as amending the state constitution or appointing judges.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) are expected to win just six seats, while the Greens and the liberal FDP are expected to win none.
In Saxony, the conservatives are ahead of the AfD with 42 seats to 40, while Sarah Wagenknecht’s party is third with 15 seats.
Sunday’s election underscored the unpopularity of Germany’s ruling ‘Traffic Light’ coalition, named for its party colours: red, yellow and green.
In the third eastern state, Brandenburg, where a vote is scheduled for three weeks later, the polls show the AfD ahead, but the Social Democrats and conservatives just a few points behind.
While Bjorn Höcke welcomed his party’s victory to supporters in Erfurt, AfD opponents gathered outside the Thuringia state parliament.
The AfD has been labelled a right-wing extremist group by the domestic intelligence services of Thuringia and Saxony. In May, a German court ruled that the BfV intelligence service was justified in monitoring the AfD on suspicion of extremism.
Among the protesters was local student Hannah, who said she was very worried about the consequences. “I think there are a lot of people who know there was a Nazi policy but don’t care. Germany has some kind of responsibility for this.”
The rise of Sarah Wagenknecht’s populist party has had a direct impact on the Left Party, which won the last Thuringian state election but has now fallen to fourth place.
Bodo Ramelow, the Left state premier in Thuringia who leads a coalition with the SPD and the Greens, said the election campaign was marked by fear and that he was “fighting against the normalization of fascism”.
