ERFURT: Voters in two former East German states began casting ballots on Sunday in elections expected to deal a blow to Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government and deliver big gains for the far-right AfD.
The contests in Thuringia and Saxony come just over a week after three people were killed in a knife attack, which has fuelled a bitter debate over immigration in Germany.
Opinion polls have the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead in Thuringia and a close second in Saxony, while also predicting a strong showing for the upstart far-left BSW.
An election victory for the AfD would be a landmark in Germany's post-war history and represent a rebuke for Scholz ahead of national elections in 2025.
In both states, Scholz's Social Democrats are polling at around six percent, while their coalition partners, the Greens and the liberal FDP, lag even further behind.
But even if the AfD does come out on top in the elections, it is unlikely to come to power because other parties have ruled out working with the far right to form a government.
Created in 2013 as an anti-euro group before morphing into an anti-immigration party, the AfD has capitalised on the fractious three-way coalition in Berlin to rise in opinion polls.
In June's EU Parliament elections, the party scored a record 15.9 percent overall and did especially well in eastern Germany, where it emerged as the biggest force.
In a post on social media platform X on Sunday, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel urged voters to choose the AfD to "not only change the future in Saxony and Thuringia, but also bring about a political turnaround throughout Germany".
Saxony is the most populous of the former East German states and has been a conservative stronghold since reunification.
Thuringia meanwhile is more rural and the only state currently led by the far-left Die Linke, a successor of East Germany's ruling communist party.
A third former East German state, Brandenburg, is also due to hold an election later in September, where polls have the AfD ahead on around 24 percent.
Alongside the AfD, new party BSW has also found a receptive audience in the eastern states for its criticism of the government in Berlin and of military aid to Ukraine. — AFP
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