In the European Parliament elections on June 9, the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party came second in Germany — and in the five states in the east of the country, the party, which has extremist factions, even came first. The results alarmed both federal and state governments across all parties.
In September, three of those eastern states — Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg — are holding elections. If the AfD becomes the strongest party, as is expected, the others will find it difficult to form a governing coalition to outnumber it, especially as Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens are so weak that in Saxony and Thuringia they may not even clear the 5% threshold to enter the state parliament.
