Far right claims first major electoral victory since World War II

Neo-Nazism in Germany won its first electoral victory since the end of World War II on Sunday (1st), after the Alternative for Germany (AfD) won a third of the vote in the state election in Thuringia and came in second only to the conservative CDU in Saxony. The result represents a blow to German Chancellor, Social Democrat Olaf Scholz.

The two eastern states of the country went to the polls on Sunday for regional parliamentary elections. In Thuringia, the AFD won the election with 32.8% of the vote. In Saxony, the far-right party came second with 30.6%, behind only the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with 31.9%.

Thuringia:

AfD: 32,8%
CDU: 23,6%
BSW: 15,8%
Left: 13.1%
SPD: 6,1%
Others: 4.3%
Verdes: 3,2%
FDP: 1,1%

Saxony

CDU: 31,9%

AfD: 30,6%

BSW: 11,8%

Others: 8.8%

SPD: 7,3%

Verdes: 5,1%

Left: 4.5%

The triumph of the far right has caused a political earthquake in the country and further weakened the center-left coalition of Prime Minister Olaf Scholz, with just 12 months to go until the legislative elections.

In Thuringia, German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz’s SPD party recorded its worst result in a regional election, with just 6.1 percent of the vote. And in Saxony, the party received 7.3 percent, fewer votes than five years ago.

On Monday (2), Scholz asked “all democratic parties” to form “stable governments without the extreme right” in Thuringia and Saxony.

“The AfD is hurting Germany. It weakens the economy, divides society and ruins our country’s reputation,” the Social Democrat leader said in a Facebook message.

All parties have already announced that they will not enter into an alliance with the AfD. Nevertheless, in Thuringia, the AfD now has a blocking minority, which would allow it, among other things, to block the appointment of judges.

In 1932, this region was the first to bring the Nazis to power. Sunday’s results are “a political earthquake in the east”, according to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, while the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports an “alarming result for the Democrats”.