The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party won the state elections in the eastern German state of Thuringia with 30.5% of the vote on Sunday and came a close second in Saxony, marking the party’s first win in a state election.
In Thuringia, AfD the centre-right CDU won 24.5% of the vote, ahead of the new left-wing populist party BSW with 16%.
The left-wing party of incumbent state prime minister Bodo Ramelow—who has governed in a minority government with the Social Democrats and the Greens until now —lost more than half of its vote share compared to the previous election in 2019, reaching only 12.5% of the votes this time around.
Meanwhile, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD won 7%, while their national coalition partners, the Greens and the liberal FDP, failed to win enough votes to be represented in the next state parliament.
The success of the far-right in Thuringia is particularly significant since it was in this region that the Nazi party made its first electoral success in 1932.
Although these elections concern only two of Germany’s 16 Länder (states) they represent a serious warning to the government, politica observers say.
The two eastern states were once part of the German Democratic Republic and though they are relatively small, accounting for some 7% of Germany’s population, they remain a sign of the rising popularity of the AfD.
The AfD branches in both Saxony and Thuringia have come under official surveillance as “proven right-wing extremist” groups. Its leader, Björn Höcke himself has been convicted of using a Nazi slogan at political events.
Founded in 2013, the AfD grew quickly to become the third-largest party in the Bundestag, the lower house of German parliament, in the 2017 federal elections, but by the 2021 election the far-right party had dropped to fifth place.
The German government’s antisemitism commissioner, Felix Klein, has expressed concern about the resurgence ofAfD and accused the party of condoning antisemitism and backing forces that have sought to downplay the Holocaust.
He accused the party of wanting to ban the kosher slaughter of meat.”If the AfD wants to curtail Jewish dietary laws, that is a threat to Jewish life,” Klein said.
Next German federal elections are due to take place in September 2025.