In a significant political development, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, achieved its inaugural victory in a state election on Sunday. Preliminary results disclosed on Sunday evening indicated that the party received 32.8 percent of the votes in Thuringia, a state located in East Germany, thereby establishing itself as the dominant force within the state parliament.
This success for the AfD occurs against a backdrop of increasing dissatisfaction with the current federal government, which is a coalition comprising the Social Democratic Party, the Greens, and the Free Democratic Party. Following the AfD in the Thuringian election was the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which secured 23.6 percent of the votes.
Nevertheless, the AfD faces significant challenges in its efforts to form a government, as other major political parties have explicitly dismissed any potential for collaboration with them. The AfD also exhibited comparable strength in Saxony, where elections were conducted on the same day, closely following the CDU in the vote count.
Furthermore, the newly established Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) ranked third in both Thuringia and Saxony, with most of its founding members previously affiliated with the Left Party.
Another eastern German state, Brandenburg, is set to conduct state elections later this month. Current polls suggest that the AfD is in the lead as well.
However, the existing “firewall” that prevents collaboration with the AfD upheld by other political parties indicates that the ensuing coalition negotiations in these states are expected to be quite complicated.