German far-right party wins historic first state election

AfD captures almost 33 per cent of the vote in Thuringia

A far-right party won a state election for the first time in post-world War II Germany in the country's east yesterday, and looked set to finish a very close second to mainstream conservatives in a second vote.

A new party founded by a prominent leftist also made a strong impact, while the parties in chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unpopular national government obtained extremely weak results.

The far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won 32.8 per cent of the vote in Thuringia – well ahead of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, the main national opposition party, with 23.6 per cent.

In neighbouring Saxony, projections for ARD and ZDF public television with the count well advanced put support for the CDU, which has led the state since German reunification in 1990, at 31.9 per cent and AfD on 30.6-30.7 per cent. AfD made substantial gains in Thuringia and smaller ones in Saxony compared with the last state elections in 2019.

“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,” said Omid Nouripour, a leader of the Greens, one of the national governing parties.

Other parties say they won’t put AfD in power by joining it in a coalition. Even so, its strength is likely to make it extremely difficult to form new state governments, forcing other parties into exotic new coalitions. The new Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, took 15.8 per cent of the vote in Thuringia and nearly 12 per cent in Saxony, adding another level of complication.