HS in Erfurt|The partly far-right AfD and the new left-wing movement BSW are getting a total of more than 40 percent of the votes. Both fringe parties oppose arms aid to Ukraine and demand a complete reversal of Germany’s refugee policy.
Erfurt
Partly far-right According to door-to-door polls, the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is getting a historically high number of votes in the state elections in eastern Germany.
The AfD is estimated to get 30 percent of the vote in Saxony and 30.5 percent in Thuringia. The increase from the last state election in 2019 is 1.6 percentage points in Saxony and about seven percentage points in Thuringia.
The new left-wing populist party is also on its way to a strong result.
A charismatic left-wing populist Sahra Wagenknecht the movement founded around BSW has only started as a party at the beginning of the year. In its first state elections, it is getting 12 percent of the vote in Saxony and 16 percent of the vote in Thuringia.
Both AfD and BSW are against arms aid to Ukraine and want to restore relations with Russia.
Both parties oppose immigration and demand a complete change in Germany’s refugee policy.
The far-right wing of the AfD is particularly strong in eastern Germany. In Thuringia, the party’s leading candidate is a right-wing radical Björn Höckewho has been convicted of using Nazi slogans.
Domestic intelligence has defined the party in both states as far-right.
The biggest the conservative CDU competes with the AfD for the party seat, which according to door-to-door polls is getting 31.5 percent of the vote in Saxony and 24.5 percent in Thuringia.
The CDU has been in power in Saxony for more than three decades.
Thuringia’s current ruling party, the leftist Die Linke, seems to have lost voters especially to the BSW and is getting 12.5 percent of the vote. The drop is more than 18 percentage points.
Both Saxony and Thuringia are located in the area of the former East Germany, or GDR, which is economically weaker than West Germany by many measures.
Chancellor By Olaf Scholz for the government, the result is a disaster.
Scholz’s social democratic ruling party SPD is getting 8.5 percent of the vote in Saxony and 7 percent of the vote in Thuringia. The support of the Greens is 5.5 percent and four percent in door-to-door surveys. The third governing party, the liberal FDP, is falling below the five percent vote threshold in both states.
Door-to-door surveys was published at 19:00 Finnish time after the polls closed. Final results are expected later.
The East German state elections have been seen as a turning point for Germany as a whole due to the popularity of the extreme right.
Other parties consider the AfD a threat to democracy and do not cooperate with it. The state government negotiations are expected to be very difficult.
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