Voters in Germany’s two eastern states will go to the polls in elections in which the far right is expected to gain strength.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is leading the polls in Thuringia ahead of Sunday’s election. In Saxony, the party is neck and neck with the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) and its coalition partners are struggling in recent polls.
On Saturday, thousands of protesters gathered in Thuringia’s regional capital Erfurt, condemning the anti-immigrant AfD as fascists. The AfD says Germany should deport illegal migrants.
Polling stations in the two German states are expected to open at 8 a.m. local time (06:00 GMT).
In Thuringia, the AfD is generally expected to become the largest party.
Meanwhile, the SPD – together with its GreenLeft and liberal coalition partners – is performing so poorly in Thuringia that they may not even win a seat in the state parliament.
The AfD is officially considered far-right in Thuringia. The highly controversial regional leader Björn Höcke was recently fined for using a Nazi slogan. However, he denies that he did so deliberately.
In Saxony, the AfD is competing for first place with the CDU.
Last week’s stabbing attack in western Germany, in which a Syrian asylum seeker and suspected Islamist is accused of killing three people, has led to fierce criticism of the way successive governments have handled migration.
Even if the AfD becomes the largest party in both states, this does not mean that it will actually seize power. Other political parties have already publicly ruled out working with the party to form a majority.
Still, the polls will serve as a litmus test for the 2025 German federal elections.
